The relation between marital status and health is one of the most established associations in the scientific literature. The present study examine the effect of marital dissolution (separation or divorce) on mortality in a cohort of 298,863 men and women, ages 14 to 75 years, who were part of the Turin Longitudinal Study (TLS). Major findings are based on assessments of estimated relative risk from Cox proportional hazards models and adjusted for demographic and socioeconomic factors.

Data show a long-term effect of marital dissolution on mortality, which last at least three years for men for all-cause of death, cardiovascular disease mortality, smoking and alcohol related diseases, and for mortality due to violent death. Even though a consistency of the elevated risk pattern is also evident for females, their mortality risks are generally higher in the first years following the marital disruption than it is in subsequent years.