Marital status and cancer survival trends
Among Norwegian cancer patients, never-married people—especially older men—showed growing excess mortality versus married peers over decades.
Source
Changes over time in the effect of marital status on cancer survival
What they did
Using Cancer Registry data on 441,556 adults aged 30–89 with first tumours of 13 sites (1970–2007), authors modelled excess mortality by marital status over time, adjusting for age, education, site, stage, and time since diagnosis.
What they found
All unmarried groups had excess mortality vs married; for men, never-married excess mortality rose ~3.4 percentage points per decade, mainly among those diagnosed after age 70.
The limits
What it doesn't show
Causal pathways (treatment access, cohabitation misclassification, social support) and whether interventions closing the gap would improve survival.
Key terms
- Excess mortality
- Extra death risk relative to a reference group (here, married patients).
- Cancer registry cohort
- Population-based ascertainment of cancer cases over calendar time.
- Never-married
- Patients recorded as never having been married at relevant follow-up.
- Stage
- Extent of cancer at diagnosis used as a covariate.
- Cohabitation
- Living with a partner without marriage, which may blur marital categories.
- Oncology outcomes
- Survival and mortality results after cancer diagnosis.
Flashcards
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Common questions
Who was included?
441,556 Norwegian adults 30–89 with a first tumour of one of 13 cancer forms, 1970–2007.
What trend stood out for men?
Never-married excess mortality rose about 3.4 percentage points per decade.
Where was the never-married disadvantage concentrated?
Mainly among those diagnosed above age 70.
Did divorced patients show the same rising gap?
Authors described a more stable pattern among the divorced.
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