The Widowhood Effect: What the Evidence Shows
Death rates rise about 41% in the six months after losing a spouse. What meta-analyses show about the widowhood effect, who is most at risk, and why.
-
-
Family Carers Are Widely Said to Face a 63 Per Cent Higher Risk of Death. In 1.1 Million Linked Records, They Died Less Often Than Everybody Else.
The famous figure came from 392 people, applied only to strained spouses, with a confidence interval starting at 1.00. Larger studies found the reverse — and inside them, strain still predicts death.
