Sexual minority couples' health during the transition to marriage

University Of Denver (Colorado Seminary), Denver CO

Investigators

Abstract

Lesbian, gay, and bisexual adults are a population that experiences significant mental and physical health disparities. This project addresses those health disparities through a focus on the romantic relationship context of health, specifically at the point of marriage. Legalized marriage is only newly available to same-sex couples in the United States as of 2015, but decades of research have demonstrated that marriage has health benefits for heterosexual couples. Social stress is a primary driver of health disparities for same-sex couples and marriage may buffer or exacerbate this stress for couples. This longitudinal study will examine the intersection of social stress and marriage. It will measure health at multiple levels of analysis among recently-married lesbian, gay, and bisexual couples across the first two years of marriage through the following aims. 1) Through repeated quantitative surveys with same-sex couples (N=250 couples) over the first two years of marriage, we will examine changes in stress, relationship processes, and physical and mental health, as well as relationship mediators and moderators of the well-established link between stress and health. 2) Through longitudinal qualitative interviews (N=24-30 couples enrolled from Aim 1), we will explore the evolving meaning of marriage over the newlywed period, as well as perceptions of how marriage shapes stress. 3) Using a sub-set of couples (N=100), we will repeatedly measure physiological markers of stress (cortisol, alpha amylase) and associations with relationship interactions and reported stress in couples’ daily lives. This study will measure both self-reported health and biological mediators of health at an important transition in same-sex couples’ lives. The proposed R01 is responsive to PAR-21-281 on dyadic processes and biopsychosocial health and NIMHD’s Scientific Vision. Our pilot data suggest that: 1) lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals face unique challenges to healthy relationship formation, 2) they appear to view marriage as a life choice in a fundamentally unique way, and 3) marriage is a potentially critical context for understanding same-sex couples’ mental and physical health. The discoveries generated by this project will make important contributions to an unexplored and critical life and relationship transition: marriage, which is uniquely shaped by social context of and has clear implications for the health of same-sex couples.