Research has shown that married people are healthier and live longer than people

Question

Research has shown that married people are healthier and live longer than people who are never married, divorced, or widowed.
(a) Think of TWO different explanations to account for this phenomenon?
(b) Draw a casual model for each explanation and describe your model in words. Research has shown that married people are healthier and live longer than people who are never married, divorced, or widowed.
(a) Think of TWO different explanations to account for this phenomenon?
(b) Draw a casual model for each explanation and describe your model in words.
(a) Think of TWO different explanations to account for this phenomenon?
(b) Draw a casual model for each explanation and describe your model in words.

Explanation / Answer

1a. Marriage and the heart

Japanese scientists reported that never-married people were three times more likely to die from cardiovascular disease than married people. And a report from the Framingham Offspring Study also suggests that marriage is truly heartwarming. Scientists evaluated 3,682 adults over a 10-year period. Even after taking major cardiovascular risk factors such as age, body fat, smoking, blood pressure, diabetes, and cholesterol into account, married people had a 46% lower rate of death than unmarried people. Coronary artery disease and hypertension are among the most important causes of heart failure, a chronic disabling condition that results when the weakened heart muscle is unable to pump all the blood that the body's tissues need. But even after this serious problem has developed, a supportive marriage is associated with improved survival.

1b. Couples "therapy"

It's often said that old married couples come to resemble each other. That may or may not be true, but according to Italian researchers, married couples do have similar cardiac risk factors. In their 2009 report, the scientists reviewed 71 earlier studies that covered more than 100,000 couples. All in all, the spouses demonstrated many shared risk factors, including hypertension, diabetes, cholesterol, obesity, and smoking. Some of the similarities can be explained by the tendency for people to choose spouses like themselves, and some of the shared risk factors depend on lifestyle habits partners have in common. That's why Australian doctors have reported success with a program that seeks to improve nutrition and exercise habits in both spouses simultaneously. That's couples therapy with a new twist.

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