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Features for Senior Citizens
 Your Spouse Can Pass on Good Health Habits, Study
Shows
In the case of flu shots, a spouse’s influence can
be ‘quite striking’
By Becky Ham, Science Writer
Health Behavior News Service
July 10, 2007 - Being a good role model can truly
help a spouse to adopt a healthy lifestyle, finds a study funded by the
National Institute on Aging.
When one spouse quits smoking or drinking, gets a
cholesterol screening or rolls up a sleeve for a flu shot, the other
spouse is more likely to follow suit, according to a new study published
in the journal Health Services Research.
“We consistently find that when one spouse improves
his or her behavior, the other spouse is likely to do so as well,” said
study co-author Tracy Falba, Ph.D.
“It isn’t clear which spouse drives the change, but
it is clear that these things happen together,” said Falba, a visiting
assistant professor in Duke University’s Center for Health Policy, Law
and Management.
The study found that a spouse’s influence differed
depending on the health behavior. The sway of the positive role model
was strongest when it came to smoking and drinking and weaker for things
like getting more vigorous exercise and having a cholesterol test.
In the case of flu shots, a spouse’s influence can
be “quite striking,” Falba said. Husbands whose wives start getting the
yearly shot have a 60 percent likelihood of getting the shot themselves,
compared with a 21 percent likelihood among husbands whose wives do not
get the shot.
Many studies have shown that a spouse’s habits —
and sometimes even marriage itself — can influence individual health
behaviors. A 2006 study from researchers at Northwestern University
found that marriage tends to make young men and women “clean up their
act” and indulge in less binge drinking and marijuana use.
Unlike some previous research on positive health
behavior, the new study tracked changes in both spouses at the same
time.
The findings could point toward a new strategy for
doctors looking to improve the health of married patients, Falba said.
“For example, interventions to increase exercise or
reduce abusive drinking might provide explicit tips about how to get the
spouse involved in exercise or how to get the spouse to help reduce
drinking cues in the couple’s lives,” Falba said.
The study was supported by the Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation and the National Institute on Aging.
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