Familial Loss of a Loved One and Biological Aging: NIMHD Social Epigenomics Program.

Importance: The link between familial loss of a loved one and long-term health decline is complex and not fully understood.

Objective: To test associations of losing a parent, sibling, child, or partner or spouse with accelerated biological aging.

Design, Setting, And Participants: Data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, a US population-based longitudinal cohort study, were analyzed.

The embodiment of parental death in early life through accelerated epigenetic aging: Implications for understanding how parental death before 18 shapes age-related health risk among older adults.

Parental death in early life has been linked to various adverse health outcomes in older adulthood. This study extends prior research to evaluate how parental death in early life is tied to accelerated epigenetic aging, a potentially important biological mechanism from which social and environmental exposures impact age-related health. We used data from the 2016 Venous Blood Study (VBS), a component of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), to examine the association between parental death in early life and accelerated epigenetic aging as measured by three widely used epigenetic clocks (PCPhenoAge, PCGrimAge, and DunedinPACE).

Social Isolation: An Unequally Distributed Health Hazard.

Social isolation is a potent predictor of poor health, mortality, and dementia risk. A great deal of research across national contexts provides causal evidence for these linkages and identifies key explanatory mechanisms through which isolation affects health. Research on social isolation recognizes that some people are more likely than others to be isolated, but over the past several decades, researchers have focused primarily on the consequences of isolation for health rather than a systematic assessment of the social conditions that foster isolation over the life course.

Parental Death Across the Life Course, Social Isolation, and Health in Later Life: Racial/Ethnic Disadvantage in the U.S.

Bereavement is a risk factor for poor health, yet prior research has not considered how exposure to parental death across the life course may contribute to lasting social isolation and, in turn, poor health among older adults. Moreover, prior research often fails to consider the racial context of bereavement in the United States wherein Black and Hispanic Americans are much more likely than White Americans to experience parental death earlier in life. The present study uses longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS; 1998-2016) to consider linkages of parental death, social isolation, and health (self-rated health, functional limitations) for Black, Hispanic, and White older adults.

Exposure to Family Member Deaths Across the Life Course for Hispanic Individuals.

The present study documents differences in exposure to family member deaths among foreign-born and U.S.-born Hispanic individuals compared with non-Hispanic Black and non-Hispanic White individuals.

Sexual Motives, Stress, and Depressive Symptoms Among Midlife Different-Sex and Same-Sex Couples.

Background And Objectives: Within relationships, sexual motives and stress are independent determinants of psychological health, with notable gendered patterns. However, previous research largely focuses on young adults and different-sex couples. Both sexual motives and levels of stress may be uniquely important to psychological health in midlife, and in potentially different ways for same-sex and different-sex couples.

Multiple Family Member Deaths and Cardiometabolic Health among Black and White Older Adults.

Although the bereavement literature is voluminous, we know very little about how exposure to multiple family member deaths across the life course shapes health trajectories as people age and whether unequal exposure to bereavement contributes to racial inequities in cardiometabolic health. We use longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study (1992-2016) to consider how multiple family member deaths before midlife shape trajectories of cardiometabolic health after age 50 for Black and white adults (n = 22,974). Results show that multiple family member deaths prior to age 50 are associated with more cardiometabolic conditions at age 50 and a faster increase in conditions with advancing age.

Gender and Social Isolation across the Life Course.

Social isolation has robust adverse effects on health, well-being, dementia risk, and longevity. Although most studies suggest similar effects of isolation on the health of men and women, there has been much less attention to gendered patterns of social isolation over the life course-despite decades of research suggesting gender differences in social ties. We build on theoretical frames of constrained choice and gender-as-relational to argue that gender differences in isolation are apparent but depend on timing in the life course and marital/partnership history.

Support in Response to a Spouse's Distress: Comparing Women and Men in Same-sex and Different-sex Marriages.

Support for a spouse with psychological distress can be expressed in many different ways. Previous research indicates that support expression is shaped by gender, but we do not know much about how support within marriage is provided in response to a spouse's distress outside of a different-sex couple context. In this study, we analyze dyadic data from 378 midlife married couples (35-65 years; = 756 individuals) within the U.

The Death of a Child and Parents' Psychological Distress in Mid to Later Life: Racial/Ethnic Differences in Exposure and Vulnerability.

Objectives: This study considered whether experiencing the death of a child is associated with subsequent psychological distress in older populations, as well as variation in both exposure and vulnerability to the death of a child among Black, Hispanic, and White older parents.

Methods: We used multilevel models to link the death of a child with subsequent distress for 9,763 non-Hispanic White, 2,496 non-Hispanic Black, 1,014 foreign-born Hispanic, and 712 U.S.

Sibling Deaths, Racial/Ethnic Disadvantage, and Dementia in Later Life.

Objectives: Sibling loss is understudied in the bereavement and health literature. The present study considers whether experiencing the death of siblings in mid-to-late life is associated with subsequent dementia risk and how differential exposure to sibling losses by race/ethnicity may contribute to racial/ethnic disparities in dementia risk.

Methods: We use discrete-time hazard regression models, a formal mediation test, and a counterfactual simulation to reveal how sibling loss in mid-to-late life affects dementia incidence and whether unequal exposures by race/ethnicity mediate the racial/ethnic disparities in dementia.

The Effects of Family Transitions on Depressive Symptoms: Differences among Young Adults with and without Childhood Symptoms of Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder.

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is tied to higher levels of depression, but the social factors that shape these associations are not well understood. This study considers whether family transitions affect depressive symptoms differently for young adults with and without childhood symptoms of ADHD at subthreshold or diagnostic levels. Between-within regression analysis of nationally representative longitudinal survey data shows that transitions into cohabitation and parenthood affect depressive symptoms differently for young adults with and without childhood symptoms of ADHD.

Parental Death and Cognitive Impairment: An Examination by Gender and Race-Ethnicity.

Objectives: We provide the first nationally representative longitudinal study of cognitive impairment in relation to parental death from childhood through early adulthood, midlife, and later adulthood, with attention to heterogeneity in the experience of parental death.

Methods: We analyzed data from the Health and Retirement Study (2000-2016). The sample included 13,392 respondents, contributing 72,860 person-periods.

Psychological distress in North America during COVID-19: The role of pandemic-related stressors.

Rationale: The COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on lives around the globe. In addition to the primary threat of infection, widespread secondary stressors associated with the pandemic have included social isolation, financial insecurity, resource scarcity, and occupational difficulties.

Objective: The current study examined the impact of these disruptions on psychological distress during the initial adjustment phase to the pandemic in North America.

Racial Differences in Early Parental Death, Midlife Life Problems, and Relationship Strain With Adult Children.

Objectives: Black Americans typically experience the death of a parent earlier in the life course than do non-Hispanic Whites, and early parental death is known to hinder subsequent relationship outcomes. Whether early parental death may contribute to racial differences in midlife family relationships and the role midlife adults' current life problems play remain unexplored.

Method: Using multilevel modeling, we examined how timing of parental death is associated with relationship strain with adult children and whether the association differs by midlife adults' life problems in Black (n = 166) and non-Hispanic White (n = 467) families from the Family Exchanges Study.

The Gender-as-Relational Approach for Theorizing About Romantic Relationships of Sexual and Gender Minority Mid- to Later-Life Adults.

We deploy the "gender-as-relational" (GAR) approach to enhance the study of the long-term romantic relationships of sexual and gender minority mid- to later-life adults. The GAR approach states that gender within relationships is shaped by three key factors: own gender, partner's gender, and the gendered relational context. This approach highlights that the relationship dynamics of men, women, and gender nonconforming people are highly diverse, reflecting that gender is a social construct formed within interactions and institutions.

"Go See Somebody": How Spouses Promote Mental Health Care.

This study considers when, whether, and how spouses encourage professional mental health care by analyzing qualitative data from 90 in-depth interviews with gay, lesbian, and heterosexual spouses. Findings show that a majority of spouses are engaged in promoting each other's mental health care but that the strategies used to promote care vary by gender and the gender composition of the couple. The majority of gay men and lesbian women promote care by framing mental health problems as largely biochemical, fixable only with professional care or medicine, and work to destigmatize this care.

Differences in how spouses influence each other's alcohol use in same- and different-sex marriages: A daily diary study.

Rationale: Different-sex spouses influence each other's alcohol consumption, with women having more influence on their spouses than men. Because women drink less than men, this long-term influence partly explains why married men and women consume less alcohol than their unmarried peers. However, much less is known about possible gender differences in the ways spouses influence each other's alcohol use on a day-to-day basis in same-compared to different-sex marriages.

The Psychological Toll of Emotion Work in Same-Sex and Different-Sex Marital Dyads.

Objective: This study considers how the provision of daily emotion work may affect the psychological well-being of the emotion worker, and how this linkage may vary for men and women in same- and different-sex marriages.

Background: Emotion work-work intended to bolster a spouse's well-being by reading and managing the spouse's emotional needs-is common within marital relationships and often gendered, with women more aware of and concerned with emotion work than men. Yet, the psychological cost of performing emotion work is largely unexplored.

Widowhood and mortality: gender, race/ethnicity, and the role of economic resources.

Purpose: We examine widowhood effects on mortality across gender and race-ethnicity, with attention to variation in the mediating role of economic resources.

Methods: Data were drawn from the Health and Retirement Study (1992-2016). The analytic sample included 34,777 respondents aged 51 years and older who contributed 208,470 person-period records.

Race, death of a child, and mortality risk among aging parents in the United States.

The death of a child is a stressful and traumatic life event that has been linked to increased mortality risk among parents. Tragically, black parents are significantly more likely than white parents to lose a child in the United States; however, prior research has not addressed this racial disadvantage in relation to parents' mortality risk. In this study, we focus on the racial context of the United States to suggest that black parents already face higher mortality rates compared to white parents, and the unequal burden of child death adds to their mortality risk.

Family Matters: Research on Family Ties and Health, 2010-2020.

Family ties have wide-ranging consequences for health, for better and for worse. This decade review uses a life course perspective to frame significant advances in research on the effects of family structure and transitions (e.g.