Dr. Christakis Quotations

People are interconnected and their health is too. We pay a lot of attention to other risk factors for ill health: tobacco exposure, poverty. Here's another risk factor: having an ill partner.

What it means to me is that people are interconnected, and so their health is interconnected, and in really real ways, there can be a kind of spread of disease between people.

What it shows is that people are interconnected, and their health is interconnected, and seeing a person you love suffer, seeing them ill, harms you.

We showed that you can die of a broken heart not just when your partner dies, but also when your partner falls ill.

The timing of such interventions might be matched to the riskiest times for caregivers, for example, just after the hospitalization of the spouse.

A spouse with cancer is generally not as burdensome for a partner as more disabling conditions such as dementia, where you combine both the stress of caring for the spouse and waning social support from your partner.

It's very hard to see someone you love who is sick; it is hard to care for them, and it is hard on your health. People are interconnected, and their health is, too.