title: Spousal loss and health in late life: moving beyond emotional trauma.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This study queries the linkage of older adults' spousal loss to multiple dimensions of their health.
  
  
  METHODS
  Data are from the 2005-2006 National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project, nationally representative of U.S. adults ages 57 to 85. Analyses examine associations of spousal loss and time since loss with multiple health dimensions.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Spousal loss is linked to a system of mental, social, behavioral, and biological issues, consistent with a stress-induced weathering process. Biological problems are more uniformly associated with women's than men's loss. While emotional sequelae may partially subside with time, a range of other outcomes remain worse even among individuals a decade or more past loss, than those with current partners.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Older adults' spousal loss influences multiple dimensions of their health. Gender differences in biological linkages suggest women's greater physiological vulnerability to this weathering event. Effects of loss are long term rather than transient, especially with biological conditions.
authors.affiliation: McGill University, Leacock, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. aniruddha.das@mcgill.ca
authors.forename: Aniruddha
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Das
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000523:psychology*; D013997:Time Factors; D014481:United States; D017805:Widowhood / Q000523:psychology*