Widowhood
The death of a spouse. Living alone, a thin network, and the feeling of loneliness are different measures.
Registries and surveys mark a person as widowed when their husband or wife has died. Elwert and Stahl count that event against people who were still married. Loneliness on this atlas is the felt gap. Social capital is network density. Job strain is a demand-control score. Living alone is a household. Widowhood is the marital event.
Also called bereavement, spousal death, widowed, conjugal bereavement.
Connected relationships
Observational · Low
Widowhood→All-cause mortality
Higher Widowhood increases All-cause mortality.
In 373,189 elderly US couples followed from 1993 to 2002, a wife's death sat with 18 percent higher all-cause death hazard in the husband (HR 1.18, 1.16 to 1.19) and a husband's death sat with 16 percent in the wife (HR 1.16, 1.14 to 1.17). Nobody assigned widowhood.