It’s widely believed that when one spouse dies the other tends to die sooner than he/she would otherwise. While this is plausible, I have a hunch it’s one of those beliefs–like the disproportionate number of babies supposedly born nine months after a blackout, or toilet flushing during Super Bowl halftime emptying a city’s water supply–that’s nifty but untrue. So tell me, if (say) a 70-year-old man dies, is his wife likely to die sooner than she would if the old guy lived? –Steven Goldberg, via e-mail Hold on, ace. While Super Bowl bathroom breaks have never been shown to play havoc with a town’s H2O, the “super flush effect” is real: as we’ve previously established, New York City occasionally experiences water-supply surges due to pressure drops during or after popular telecasts, most notably the two-and-a-half-hour MAS*H finale in 1983. Likewise, dying of grief isn’t merely romantic legend but a well-documented phenomenon, verified in a range of studies over the last 20 or 30 years in several countries. For this you can thank actuaries, who’ll stop at nothing to “substitute facts for appearances and demonstrations for impressions,” a pithy line from John Ruskin that the Society of Actuaries has adopted as its motto, and a fair description of our theory of operation at the Straight Dope.
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Most experts agree there are three main reasons for this phenomenon, although the statistics don’t tell you which is most important:
The mortality risk is higher for widows/widowers under age 55 when the bereavement was sudden, as from accident. For widows/widowers in the 50-to-65-year range, the highest risk is when the spouse has died of chronic illness. Several studies indicate the risk is lower when the widow/widower has family or other social support and higher when the bereaved is socially isolated.
