Gumà Jordi, Cámara Antonio D, Treviño Rocío
Centre d'Estudis Demogràfics, Barcelona, Spain.
Eur J Ageing. 2014 May 3;12(1):71-79. doi: 10.1007/s10433-014-0316-x. eCollection 2015 Mar.
The association between health and partnership status is a growing concern within the social sciences. Some partnership situations exhibit positive effects on health, while partnership breakdowns display negative impacts. However, case studies show that these associations may change with age, due to potential sources of heterogeneity within a population. The current analysis explored this association over the adult life course (ages 30-64) of Europeans aged 50 years and older based on retrospective information on health and partnership from SHARELIFE ( = 23,535 after data screening). The data allowed us to control for socio-demographic covariates as well as for individual infirmity, measured by childhood health. We also considered contextual survival selection effects by comparing 13 European countries for which pre-adult mortality levels largely differed among the cohorts involved (1907-1958). Discrete-time hazard analyses examined the risk of suffering from a major episode of poor health (self-reported) in adulthood as a function of partnership history, using two approaches: a pooled model and country-specific models. The results revealed no differences between those who lived with a partner (first union) and single individuals in terms of the retrospective hazards of poor health. We hypothesize that this result stems from the cumulative effect of survival selection on individuals in advanced ages according to partnership status. The results also partially point to the plausibility of a contextual survival selection, which should be confirmed by further research based on additional health indicators.
健康与伴侣关系状况之间的关联在社会科学领域日益受到关注。某些伴侣关系状况对健康有积极影响，而伴侣关系破裂则显示出负面影响。然而，案例研究表明，由于人群中存在潜在的异质性来源，这些关联可能会随年龄而变化。当前的分析基于来自SHARELIFE（数据筛选后n = 23,535）的关于健康和伴侣关系的回顾性信息，探讨了50岁及以上欧洲成年人在成年生命历程（30 - 64岁）中的这种关联。这些数据使我们能够控制社会人口统计学协变量以及通过儿童时期健康状况衡量的个体体弱情况。我们还通过比较13个欧洲国家来考虑背景生存选择效应，在这些国家中，不同队列（1907 - 1958年）的成年前死亡率水平差异很大。离散时间风险分析使用两种方法，研究了成年后经历重大健康不佳事件（自我报告）的风险作为伴侣关系历史的函数：一种是合并模型，另一种是特定国家模型。结果显示，在回顾性健康不佳风险方面，与伴侣（首次结合）共同生活的人和单身人士之间没有差异。我们假设这一结果源于根据伴侣关系状况对高龄个体的生存选择的累积效应。结果还部分表明了背景生存选择的合理性，这一点应通过基于其他健康指标的进一步研究来证实。
