“We showed you can die of a broken heart not just when your partner dies, but when your partner falls ill. We showed it is not just death that can give you a broken heart, but illness -- even when the spouses don't die.”
“If you are living at the margin, economically or in terms of age or being sicker, you are more vulnerable to your spouse being sick. If I am richer or younger, it is not as big a shock.”
“Initially the partner is at increased risk from heart attack, suicide, and accidents. I am shocked my wife is sick and I stop paying attention when driving. And there is an increase in infections.”
“Because people are interconnected, we think this phenomenon we studied in elderly married couples applies more generally. We are looking at broader connections -- between parent and child, brother and sister, neighbors, and friends.”
“You can save my life by taking better care of my spouse as she dies. People care about the burden of their death on their loved ones. When I'm sick I want to know the impact of my health on the health of my loved ones.”
“What it means to me is that people are interconnected, and so their health is interconnected, and in really real ways, there can be a kind of spread of disease between people.”
