Physical Health and Emotional Distress
of Middle-Aged and Older Married Couples
Aloen L. Townsend, Principal Investigator
Baila Miller, Co-Principal Investigator
Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences
Margie Rodriguez Le Sage, Minority Scholar
School of Social Work
Michigan State University
Coping with health problems poses emotional challenges for both partners in married couples,
even if only one person's health is impaired. When both partners experience health problems, the
challenges are compounded. This study investigated the link between changes in physical health
and changes in emotional distress (i.e., depressive symptoms) in middle-aged and older married
couples. The theoretical model was based on social contextual models of stress and well-being that
emphasize interdependence between spouses. Specific aims were (1) to investigate the extent to
which depressive symptoms varied over time; (2) to determine whether variability in depressive
symptoms within couples was predicted by changes in one's own physical health and by changes in the
partner's physical health, controlling for gender, age, education, and work status; and (3) to
examine the extent to which variability in depressive symptoms between couples was predicted by
couples' race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status. A secondary aim was to examine whether the
association between physical health and depressive symptoms varied as a function of the quality of
the marital relationship. Study hypotheses were tested using secondary analysis of three
federally-funded, nationally-representative, multistage area probability surveys (the Health and
Retirement Survey, the Asset and Health Dynamics of the Oldest-Old Survey, and the Americans'
Changing Lives Survey). The total sample was 5,423 couples across the 3 surveys (604 non-Hispanic
African American couples, 220 Mexican American couples, and 4,599 non-Hispanic White couples), with
3 waves of data collection. The major contributions of the research are its delineation of the
longitudinal relationship between depressive symptoms and physical health within married couples;
its identification of both individual-level and couple-level characteristics that influence
depression; and its inclusion of minority couples.
This research was funded by National Institute on Aging grant R01 AG17546
(04/2000-03/2003) and a National Institute on Aging Research Supplement for Underrepresented
Minorities.
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