Marital partners of people with some diseases may need to be screened because they are at increased risk of the same disease. In a large, general practice based, cross sectional study, Hippisley-Cox and colleagues (p 636) found that participants whose marital partner had asthma, depression, hypertension, hyperlipidaemia, or peptic ulcer disease were at increased risk of having the same disease. Shared environmental causes may be implicated in the development of diseases, in addition to genetic or distant exposures and shared behaviours with respect to seeking health care.
RICHARD KOLKER/PHOTONICA