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Concordance of health states in couples: Analysis of self-reported, nurse administered and blood-based biomarker data in the UK Understanding Society panel

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  • Davillas, Apostolos
  • Pudney, Stephen

Abstract

We use self-reported health measures, nurse-administered measurements and blood-based biomarkers to examine the concordance between health states of partners in marital/cohabiting relationships in the UK. A model of cumulative health exposures is used to interpret the empirical pattern of between-partner health correlation in relation to elapsed relationship duration, allowing us to distinguish non-causal correlation due to assortative mating from potentially causal effects of shared lifestyle and environmental factors. We find important differences between the results for different health indicators, with strongest homogamy correlations observed for adiposity, followed by blood pressure, heart rate, inflammatory markers and cholesterol, and also self-assessed general health and functional difficulties. We find no evidence of a “dose–response relationship” for marriage duration, and show that this suggests – perhaps counterintuitively – that shared lifestyle factors and homogamous partner selection make roughly equal contributions to the concordance we observe in most of the health measures we examine.

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  • Davillas, Apostolos & Pudney, Stephen, 2017. "Concordance of health states in couples: Analysis of self-reported, nurse administered and blood-based biomarker data in the UK Understanding Society panel," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 87-102.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jhecon:v:56:y:2017:i:c:p:87-102
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2017.09.010
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    1. Byrne, Dominic & Kwak, Do Won & Tang, Kam Ki & Yazbeck, Myra, 2023. "Spillover effects of retirement: Does health vulnerability matter?," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 48(C).
    2. Francetic, Igor & Meacock, Rachel & Sutton, Matt, 2022. "Understanding Concordance in Health Behaviours among Couples: Evidence from the Bowel Cancer Screening Programme in England," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 201(C), pages 310-345.
    3. Vincenzo Carrieri & Apostolos Davillas & Andrew M. Jones, 2020. "A latent class approach to inequity in health using biomarker data," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(7), pages 808-826, July.
    4. Zhao, Yuejun, 2023. "Job displacement and the mental health of households: Burden sharing counteracts spillover," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    5. Michaela Benzeval & Edith Aguirre & Meena Kumari, 2023. "Understanding Society: health, biomarker and genetic data," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 44(4), pages 399-415, December.
    6. Davillas, Apostolos & Pudney, Stephen, 2020. "Biomarkers, disability and health care demand," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 39(C).
    7. James Banks & Iris Kesternich & James P. Smith, 2021. "International differences in interspousal health correlations," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(5), pages 1152-1177, May.
    8. Lanlin Ding & Andrew M. Jones & Peng Nie, 2022. "Ex ante Inequality of Opportunity in Health among the Elderly in China: A Distributional Decomposition Analysis of Biomarkers," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 68(4), pages 922-950, December.
    9. Urvashi Jain & Mingming Ma, 2024. "Together in sickness and in health: Spillover of physical, mental, and cognitive health among older English couples," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(9), pages 1989-2012, September.
    10. Steele, Fiona & Clarke, Paul & Kuha, Jouni, 2019. "Modeling within-household associations in household panel studies," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 88162, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    11. Angelini, Viola & Costa-Font, Joan, 2023. "Health and wellbeing spillovers of a partner's cancer diagnosis," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 212(C), pages 422-437.
    12. Arni, Patrick & Dragone, Davide & Goette, Lorenz & Ziebarth, Nicolas R., 2021. "Biased health perceptions and risky health behaviors—Theory and evidence," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    13. Seetha Menon, 2023. "The effect of domestic violence on cardiovascular risk," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 371-395, June.
    14. Davillas, Apostolos & M. Jones, Andrew & Sinha, Kompal & Sharma, Anurag, 2018. "Distributional analysis of the role of breadth and persistence of multiple deprivation in the health gradient measured by biomarkers," ISER Working Paper Series 2018-14, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    15. Angelini, Viola & Costa-Font, Joan, 2023. "Health and wellbeing spillovers of a partner’s cancer diagnosis," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 119327, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    16. Barry, L.E. & O'Neill, S. & Heaney, L.G. & O'Neill, C., 2021. "Stress-related health depreciation: Using allostatic load to predict self-rated health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 283(C).
    17. Kira S Birditt & Angela Turkelson & Courtney A Polenick & James A Cranford & Frederic C Blow, 2022. "Alcohol Use and Blood Pressure Among Older Couples: The Moderating Role of Negative Marital Quality [Relationship of self-reported alcohol consumption to ambulatory blood pressure in a sample of he," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 77(9), pages 1592-1602.
    18. Fumagalli, Elena & Fumagalli, Laura, 2022. "Subjective well-being and the gender composition of the reference group: Evidence from a survey experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 194(C), pages 196-219.
    19. Alexi Gugushvili & Grzegorz Bulczak & Olga Zelinska & Jonathan Koltai, 2021. "Socioeconomic position, social mobility, and health selection effects on allostatic load in the United States," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(8), pages 1-22, August.
    20. Sarah Brown & Pulak Ghosh & Daniel Gray & Bhuvanesh Pareek & Jennifer Roberts, 2021. "Saving behaviour and health: A high-dimensional Bayesian analysis of British panel data," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(16), pages 1581-1603, November.
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    Cited by:

    1. Davillas, Apostolos & Pudney, Stephen, 2020. "Using biomarkers to predict healthcare costs: Evidence from a UK household panel," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    2. Angelini, Viola & Costa-Font, Joan, 2023. "Health and wellbeing spillovers of a partner's cancer diagnosis," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 212(C), pages 422-437.
    3. Angelini, Viola & Costa-Font, Joan, 2023. "Health and wellbeing spillovers of a partner’s cancer diagnosis," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 119327, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Davillas, Apostolos & Pudney, Stephen, 2020. "Biomarkers, disability and health care demand," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 39(C).
    5. Fumagalli, Elena & Fumagalli, Laura, 2022. "Subjective well-being and the gender composition of the reference group: Evidence from a survey experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 194(C), pages 196-219.
    6. Davillas, Apostolos & Jones, Andrew M, 2020. "Ex ante inequality of opportunity in health, decomposition and distributional analysis of biomarkers," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    7. Byrne, Dominic & Kwak, Do Won & Tang, Kam Ki & Yazbeck, Myra, 2023. "Spillover effects of retirement: Does health vulnerability matter?," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 48(C).
    8. James Banks & Iris Kesternich & James P. Smith, 2021. "International differences in interspousal health correlations," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(5), pages 1152-1177, May.
    9. Arni, Patrick & Dragone, Davide & Goette, Lorenz & Ziebarth, Nicolas R., 2021. "Biased health perceptions and risky health behaviors—Theory and evidence," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    10. Seetha Menon, 2023. "The effect of domestic violence on cardiovascular risk," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 371-395, June.
    11. Barry, L.E. & O'Neill, S. & Heaney, L.G. & O'Neill, C., 2021. "Stress-related health depreciation: Using allostatic load to predict self-rated health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 283(C).
    12. Vincenzo Carrieri & Apostolos Davillas & Andrew M. Jones, 2020. "A latent class approach to inequity in health using biomarker data," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(7), pages 808-826, July.
    13. Apostolos Davillas & Victor Hugo Oliveira & Andrew M. Jones, 2024. "A model of errors in BMI based on self-reported and measured anthropometrics with evidence from Brazilian data," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 67(5), pages 2371-2410, November.
    14. Sinha, K.; & Davillas, A.; & Jones, A.M.; & Sharma, A.;, 2018. "Distributional analysis of the role of breadth and persistence of multiple deprivation in the health gradient measured by biomarkers," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 18/31, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    15. Francetic, Igor & Meacock, Rachel & Sutton, Matt, 2022. "Understanding Concordance in Health Behaviours among Couples: Evidence from the Bowel Cancer Screening Programme in England," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 201(C), pages 310-345.
    16. Davillas, Apostolos & Pudney, Stephen, 2019. "Baseline health and public healthcare costs five years on: a predictive analysis using biomarker data in a prospective household panel," ISER Working Paper Series 2019-01, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    17. Zhao, Yuejun, 2023. "Job displacement and the mental health of households: Burden sharing counteracts spillover," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    18. Steele, Fiona & Clarke, Paul & Kuha, Jouni, 2019. "Modeling within-household associations in household panel studies," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 88162, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    C2; C8; I10; Biomarkers; Health; Homogamy; Spousal concordance; Understanding Society;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C2 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables
    • C8 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs
    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General

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