Sibling love in adolescence and subsequent health and well-being in adulthood

Objective: This study investigates long-term associations between sibling love in adolescence and health and wellbeing in adulthood. Background: Previous scholarship indicates that better sibling relationships have the potential to promote wellbeing during adolescence, yet little is known about whether greater love within sibling relationships leads to improved outcomes across life domains in adulthood. Method: The study uses data from Add Health, a large national sample of U.S. adolescents and leverages the main study sample (N = 5,804) and sibling pairs subsample (N = 1,244) to examine longitudinal associations, using a series of regression models adjusting for a wide range of covariates, of one-year increases in love between siblings (love for siblings and love from siblings) with 32 indicators of physical health, health behavior, mental health, psychological well-being, social factors, and civic/prosocial behavior approximately 20 years later. Results: Results indicated that greater love for siblings was associated with select outcomes in adulthood, specifically: better sleep health (reduced risk of sleep apnea and sleep disturbance) and psychological well-being (higher optimism) and civic behavior (higher likelihood of voting) in adulthood, and greater love from siblings was associated with reduced risk of anxiety and depression. Overall, greater sibling love (assessed in both directions) was not associated with the majority of outcomes assessed in adulthood. Conclusion: These findings suggest that greater sibling love during adolescence is related to better outcomes for some important indicators of health and well-being. However, it did not show strong relationships across outcomes from domains of health and well-being. There is a need to better understand whether the associations between sibling love and long-term health are causal, and whether relevant interventions are feasible and effective.