Oct. 20, 2026
Contact: Brian Consiglio, consigliob@missouri.edu
The person you share your life with may influence more than your mood, your schedule or what’s for dinner. University of Missouri researchers want to know whether the routines and experiences couples share could also be reflected in their physical health.
Eunjin Tracy, a researcher in Mizzou’s College of Education and Human Development, is leading a National Institutes of Health-funded study to determine whether those connections can be measured.
Tracy and her team will examine how couples’ day-to-day habits and support for each other relate to physical health. Specifically, they will study couples in which at least one partner has type 2 diabetes to see whether patterns in sleep, daily routines and relationship quality are associated with changes in blood glucose and ultimately with the risk of heart disease.
“We tend to think about health as something that belongs to the individual,” Tracy said. “But when two people share their lives, their daily experiences are intertwined. We want to understand what that means for their health.”
Patterns that matter
One person stays up late while the other goes to bed early. A stressful workday changes the mood at home. Dinner happens at roughly the same time — or rarely does. Reminders sound like nagging.
Those ordinary patterns may seem insignificant, but Tracy wants to know whether they leave measurable traces in partners’ health.
For the study, both partners will wear devices that track sleep and continuous glucose levels for 20 days. They’ll also report on their daily routines and relationship experiences.
By looking at all measurements together, researchers will examine whether changes in one partner’s daily life correspond with changes in the other partner’s experiences or blood glucose.
The researchers hypothesize that couples with stronger relationship quality and more consistent daily routines may also have healthier blood glucose levels and therefore be at lower risk for heart disease.
Consistency refers to the regularity of each partner’s daily routines, not whether they follow the same schedule, Tracy said. For example, one partner might regularly go to bed at 8 p.m. while the other goes to bed at 10 p.m. The researchers want to understand how each person’s routine fits within the couple’s shared life.
A team approach to understanding health
Tracy is collaborating with Mizzou experts in nutrition and exercise physiology, psychology, medicine and statistics to examine the connection between relationships, routines and health from multiple perspectives.
“It’s a very interdisciplinary research environment here at Mizzou, which makes it the perfect place for this work to thrive,” Tracy, who works in the Department of Human Development and Family Science, said.
The range of expertise is important because the study examines several parts of daily life at once.
A partner might influence when you sleep, what you eat, how active you are and how you experience stress. Tracy’s team will investigate whether those everyday connections are also reflected in measurable health outcomes.
Looking at health as a shared experience
The research could eventually point toward a different way of thinking about health interventions.
If the study supports Tracy’s hypothesis, future interventions might focus on both partners, recognizing that one person’s ability to make lasting changes may be influenced by the life they share with someone else.
The research could also offer a broader lesson about how health is studied.
When people share routines, responsibilities, stress and support, their health may not be entirely their own.
