Married people less likely to get cancer than singles, doctors find

WASHINGTON - Unmarried people could face a higher risk of developing cancer than those who have gone down on one knee or said "I do," a team of University of Miami doctors has found after examining data from 12 U.S. states and 4 million cancer cases.

"Social factors such as marital status may serve as important markers of cancer risk at the population level," said cancer epidemiology specialist Paulo Pinheiro from the university's Miller School Department of Public Health Sciences.

Unmarried men were found to be 70% more likely to develop cancer than married peers, while for women the figure was 85%. The risks varied by cancer type, with those linked to infection, smoking or alcohol use more prominent overall. For unmarried women, the major risks were reproductive cancers such as ovarian and endometrial cancer.

The research does not mean people must get married or that spouses are free of cancer risk. However, it suggests unmarried people should be paying extra attention to cancer risk factors and keeping up to date with screenings, according to Frank Penedo of the University of Miami.

Previous research has found marriage to be "consistently associated with earlier cancer diagnosis and improved survival," the Miami team pointed out in their paper, which was published in the journal Cancer Research Communications in April.

However, the link between marriage and cancer incidence has been "less understood," the researchers added, explaining why they carried out the study. "Marital status may be a powerful and underrecognized social determinant of cancer risk," they concluded.

The findings are a "clear and powerful signal that some individuals are at a greater risk," Penedo added, calling for more research into the subject.

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This story was originally published April 22, 2026 at 4:19 AM.