Association of Happiness and Life Satisfaction with Cancer Mortality in the United States: A Longitudinal Analysis

Abstract

Background: Theimpact of happiness and life satisfaction on cancer mortality is not well studied. Using a longitudinal dataset, we examined the association between levels of happiness/life satisfaction and cancer mortality in the United States.

Methods: We analyzed the 2001 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) prospectively linked to 2001-2014 mortality records in the National Death Index (NDI) (N=30,933). Cox proportional hazards regression was used to model survival time as a function of happiness, life satisfaction, and sociodemographic and behavioral characteristics.

Results: In Cox models with 14 years of mortality follow-up, cancer mortality risk was 78% higher (hazard ratio [HR]=1.78; 95% CI=1.42,2.23) in adults with little or no happiness, controlling for age, and 53% higher (HR=1.53; 95% CI=1.19,1.97) in adults with little/no happiness, controlling for sociodemographic, behavioral and health characteristics, when compared with adults reporting happiness most or all of the time. Age-adjusted cancer mortality risk increased by 41% (HR=1.41; 95% CI=1.21,1.77) in adults who were very dissatisfied with their life. Cancer mortality did not vary by life satisfaction after adjusting for all covariates.

Conclusions and Implications for Translation: Adults with lower happiness levels had significantly higher cancer mortality risks than those with higher happiness levels. Excess mortality was substantially accounted for by sociodemographic, behavioral, and health risk factors.

Copyright © 2020 Lee and Singh. Published by Global Health and Education Projects, Inc. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License CC BY 4.0.