Long-Term Patterns of Alcohol Use in Older Different-Sex Couples: Concordant Drinking Appears Initially Protective but Predicts Declines in Health Over Time.

OBJECTIVE: Longitudinal patterns of alcohol use among older couples may have important implications for health. This study identified trajectories of alcohol use among different-sex couples and their associations with health over 24 years.

METHOD: Participants included 9,823 older married/cohabiting different-sex couples from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), in which participants complete surveys every 2 years. We included couples with at least three waves of alcohol and health data between 1996 and 2020.

RESULTS: Dual-trajectory latent class growth analysis revealed five longitudinal couple-level trajectories of alcohol use: concordant infrequent/abstaining, concordant light, concordant moderate, discordant husband heavy wife light, and discordant husband moderate wife infrequent/abstaining. Self-rated health was higher on average but decreased more rapidly over time for concordant moderate compared with concordant infrequent/abstaining husbands and wives. On average, chronic health conditions were higher for concordant infrequent/abstaining than for concordant light and concordant moderate couples. The number of conditions increased more rapidly over time for concordant infrequent/abstaining and discordant husband heavy wife light compared with concordant light and discordant husband moderate wife infrequent/abstaining couples.

CONCLUSIONS: These findings reveal the importance of considering couple patterns of drinking amount and drinking concordance to understand the impact of alcohol use on health among older couples.