Does One Size Fit All? Socioeconomic Moderators of Post-divorce Health and the Effects of a Post-divorce Digital Intervention

Abstract

Public health efforts to reduce divorce-induced health adversities are gaining momentum and positive interventional outcomes of the online Cooperation After Divorce (CAD) digital platform for divorcees have been documented by previous research. However, it is unknown whether socioeconomic characteristics previously associated with prolonged divorce recovery are also associated with post-divorce intervention efficacy, and if so, in what way. Multilevel modeling was employed using a sample of 1,856 recently divorced Danes, who participated in an RCT study of the CAD digital platform, to investigate whether educational and income level (1) predict post-divorce health, (2) moderate the time-induced trajectories of post-divorce health, and (3) moderate the intervention-induced trajectories on post-divorce health over the first 12-months following legal divorce. The findings indicated that lower education and lower income predicted worse post-divorce health over one year post-divorce. Furthermore, it was indicated that education moderated post-divorce anxiety so that lower-educated participants experienced a larger reduction in symptoms of anxiety over time. However, except for depression, no moderating effect of income and education on the intervention effect of CAD was found. Our results suggest a beneficial effect of the CAD digital platform across socioeconomic characteristics in the post-divorce period, bolstering claims of the scalability of post-divorce interventions. Moreover, the findings suggest that, theoretically, the intervention may work to compensate for the lack of educational resources in reducing the health gap in post-divorce recovery.

Keywords

• marital divorce
• mental and physical health
• digital intervention
• socioeconomic moderators
• linear mixed-effects modeling