August 2025 Newsletter- Bridging Research & Practice

Dating back at least to the 1980s, there have been enumerable studies that demonstrate the higher mortality rate of widowed men compared to their married counterparts. Some of the early studies even indicated that these higher risks for death were close to the mortality risk for married men when the widowers remarried. Of course, many of these studies were flawed methodologically, usually failing to account for the different health statuses of men who married versus those who remained single after a spouse’s death. In other words, if an older widower is already unwell at the time of his spouse’s death, it stands to reason he is less likely to remarry and more likely to die earlier.

But the authors of the current study address many of these earlier flaws in method. In their abstract and introduction, the study’s authors noted their intent to investigate the impact of spousal bereavement on medical expenditure and mortality, and then sorted their results by age cohort and sex. They followed 924,958 Danish citizens aged greater than 65 between 2011 and 2016 to measure the changes in health care expenditures between those who suffered bereavement and those who did not.

About 8.4% of the individuals experienced bereavement, approximately 1/3 of whom were males. Bereaved men spent an average of 42 Euros per week more on health care than their non-bereaved counterparts, especially during the first year of grief. For the female bereaved, their expenditures averaged 35 Euros per week more than their non-bereaved counterparts.

The mortality increase was especially higher in the first year of bereavement, especially for younger (65-75 year old) men. Compared with the non-bereaved reference group, mortality the year after spousal loss was 70% higher for 65-69 year old men and remained higher for six years. Mortality risk for females in the same age group was 27% higher in the first year but stabilized to that of the non-bereaved reference group in the subsequent years.

What is clear from this analysis is the fact of higher health care spending and mortality. What is unclear is the actual cause of such differences. Could it be that the lack of emotionality more often characterized by bereaved men than women is the culprit? In light of the previous article, that would be too simplistic an answer even though it has commonly been blamed. What would prove instructive is to segregate the bereaved men who spent more to analyze their overall health. Could the explanation be as simple as that they delayed care when caring for an ill spouse, only to get more diligent in their own health after the spouse’s death? On the face of the current data, we just don’t know.

What we do know, however, is that all bereaved individuals are best served when we inquire about what they need individually and work to limit our assumptions based on their gender, ethnicity, religious framework, or other categorization method.

 Because this study was published open access, it is available for free download at https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282892