Citation

Buroga M, Regidor E, Rodriguez C, Gutierrez-Fisac JL. Eur. J. Public Health 1998; 8(1): 37-42.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1998, Oxford University Press)

DOI

10.1093/eurpub/8.1.37

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

A number of studies have shown an association between marital status and mortality, with most of them finding a lower mortality in married as compared to unmarried persons. The purpose of this study is to show the differences in mortality from the leading causes of death by marital status among men and women in Spain. An analysis was made of persons aged 25 years and older who died in Spain during 1991. The mortality differences by marital status and sex were analysed for all the deaths and for the most frequent causes of death, using the ratios of age-adjusted death rates calculated from Poisson log--linear models. For both men and women, mortality was always higher in single and widowed persons than in married persons, except for a non-statistically significant mortality from diabetes mellitus and cirrhosis of the liver in single women. Divorced and separated men had a higher mortality than married men for all the causes of death taken together; the mortality among divorced and separated women, on the other hand, was lower than in married women. Divorced and separated men and women generally had a lower mortality than married persons for the different causes of death, except for traffic accidents, suicide, cirrhosis of the liver and HIV infection, where it was higher. The results obtained are similar to the findings of most studies in other countries, in which a lower mortality has been observed in married persons as compared to those who are widowed or single. However, the data showing that divorced and separated persons have a lower mortality from some causes of death than married persons stand in contrast to most published studies. This work has shown that unmarried persons are not a homogeneous group, in that divorced and separated persons are very different from those who are single or widowed.