# Impact of relationship factors on physical and psychological health and wellbeing

> **NIH NIH R03** · UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AT ANN ARBOR · 2020 · $78,000

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
This project will study the associations between courtship processes, marital quality, and marital dissolution in
a society just beginning a dramatic transition in marital relationship and behavior. This study will focus on two
aspects of marital quality: (1) love and affection (2) disagreement and criticism within marriage, and marital
dissolution (separation and divorce). The setting, rural Nepal, is in the midst of transitions in both courtship
process and relationship dynamics including marital dissolution. Research around the globe has demonstrated
the important impact of the premarital courtship process, marital status, and more importantly, relationship
quality on individual physical and psychological health and wellbeing. Yet little research investigates links
between courtship processes and marital quality and marital dissolution. Both theory and preliminary evidence
point toward the importance of changes in multiple dimensions of the courtship process as key links between
individuals' community context, household background and characteristics, familial as well as non-family
experiences, and marital quality and marital dissolution. Moreover, the scant research investigating the link is
primarily focused on Western settings with little or no variation in courtship processes, as most courtships are
limited to autonomous courtship systems. However, the specific mechanisms responsible for creating these
links remain unknown. We build on an ongoing program of research that has already made numerous
contributions to our understanding of the influence of various community-, household- and individual-level
factors on both marital processes and marital quality and marital dissolution. We propose to investigate
multiple courtship processes as mechanisms linking community-, household- and individual-level factors to
marital quality and marital dissolution. To accomplish this, we will integrate existing, culturally appropriate
measures of multiple dimensions of courtship processes into models of marital quality and marital dissolution
to conduct tests of these mechanisms. The data we will use contain a particularly rich body of contextual
measures, detailed personal interviews with both husbands and wives, and a monthly record of marital status
spanning 22 years. With this wealth of information from and about husbands and wives, we have the measures
necessary to significantly advance the scientific understanding of the role of courtship processes in explaining
the effects of community context, and household and non-family experience on marital quality and marital
dissolution. Given autonomous courtship practice and marital dissolution are rapidly increasing in non-Western
settings, the insights we gain from this study are particularly significant because courtship processes may
strongly affect marital quality and marital dissolution and ultimately influence both family and child health and
wellbeing.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9976264
- **Project number:** 1R03HD098706-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AT ANN ARBOR
- **Principal Investigator:** Dirgha J Ghimire
- **Activity code:** R03 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $78,000
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2020-06-01 → 2022-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9976264

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9976264, Impact of relationship factors on physical and psychological health and wellbeing (1R03HD098706-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9976264. Licensed CC0.

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