# Union History and Midlife Health

> **NIH NIH R03** · BROWN UNIVERSITY · 2021 · $79,500

## Abstract

Abstract
Married individuals have substantially lower risks of morbidity and mortality and enjoy better health than
unmarried people. Yet marriage may represent only one stage over an individual’s life course, and health
benefits of marriage may depend on marital age and duration. Furthermore, cohabitation before marriage and
union status after marriage may also contribute to health outcomes later in life. Recent work has moved from
research on health disparities by marital status or transition to focus its attention on union history and health.
However, measures of union history do not capture cumulative effects that unfold over the life course and
neglect how earlier union experiences may shape the health consequences of later unions. In this application,
we propose a life course perspective and posit that union history (including timing, duration, and sequencing of
singlehood, marriage, cohabitation, dissolution, and/or widowhood) in earlier adult life influences health
outcomes in midlife. The data from the 2016 wave of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79)
represent a milestone in which all respondents had reached age 50 and answered health questions designed
for that age. We apply sequence analysis to capture the complete structure of union history. Our approach is
innovative in that we identify prototypical union history trajectories through measures of timing, duration, and
sequencing of individuals’ union events in earlier adult life, which correspond well with how life course
experiences may have cumulative effects on midlife health. We investigate how gender, race/ethnicity, and
social class shape union history trajectory, how union history trajectory influences midlife health outcomes, and
how the relationships between union history trajectory and midlife health outcomes vary by gender,
race/ethnicity, and social class. This work will yield knowledge of how increasingly complex union history
trajectories contribute to growing health disparities among America’s diverse populations.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10287778
- **Project number:** 1R03AG073938-01
- **Recipient organization:** BROWN UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** ZHENCHAO QIAN
- **Activity code:** R03 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $79,500
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2021-09-01 → 2023-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10287778

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10287778, Union History and Midlife Health (1R03AG073938-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-28 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10287778. Licensed CC0.

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