Christakis and his colleagues have conducted a series of studies funded by a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator Award in Health Policy Research that illustrate the interrelatedness of health, illness, and death in married couples. Among their findings:

• Married people show different patterns of health care use from those who are widowed, with married people consistently using higher-quality hospitals and having shorter stays in the hospital. However, once in the hospital, the married and the widowed appear to receive the same quality of care.
• Hospitalization of a husband or wife for a serious illness increases the overall risk of spousal death by about 20 percent. Certain conditions—such as dementia, psychiatric disease, hip fracture, chronic lung disease, and stroke—carry higher risks than others.
• The use of hospice care mitigates the burden of caregiving and reduces the risk of prematu death in husbands and wives whose partners are terminally ill.

Taken together, Christakis’ findings suggest that health, illness, and death do not develop in isolation. The findings suggest strategies for policymakers to increase support for caregiving spouses by making counseling, home health services, and respite care more easily available.