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The present study examined the role that health-related social control plays in promoting health-enhancing behavioral reactions among married couples. Healthrelated social control refers to interactions entailing influence and regulation of health practices. A sample of 109 couples answered questions about their social control interactions during structured phone interviews. Analyses maintaining the couple as the unit of analysis indicated that spouses' reports of more frequent social control overall and the use of positive, bilateral, and direct social control tactics predicted their partners' reports of health-enhancing behavioral reactions.

The present study investigated predictors of health-related social influence tactic use in close relationships. According to the social ecological perspective, predictors were classified as reflecting characteristics of the agent of social influence, characteristics of the target of social influence, characteristics of the agent and target's relationship, and characteristics of the social influence situation. One hundred and nine married couples reported on situations in which each partner was attempting to influence his or her spouse to change a health-related behavior. Using the actor-partner interdependence analysis approach, results revealed only actor effects for characteristics of the agent, primarily partner effects for characteristics of the target, and both actor and partner effects for characteristics of the situation when predicting health-related tactic use. Effects for relationship characteristics only emerged in interactions with respondent sex. These results indicate that social influence in marriage involves reciprocity and interdependence. The importance of examining the dyadic nature of health-related social influence in close relationships is also highlighted.

Three studies examined the conceptualization and assessment of health-related social control in marriage. Using a sample of 100 couples, Study 1 tested the idea that social control is best thought of as the exercise of power and control in close relationships. Results did not support this conceptualization or assessment of health-related social control in marriage. Based on these results, Study 2 collected qualitative data from husbands and wives via focus groups to explore the use of social control tactics that couples use to change health behavior. Results indicated that many tactics reported by spouses are not contained in the social influence literature, and that the exercise of social control in marriage may best be characterized of as an interdependent communally oriented process between spouses. Using another sample of 109 married couples, Study 3 tested the reliability and validity of a measure developed from the qualitative data. Results indicated the new measure of health-related social control tactics evidenced better reliability and validity than the measure used in Study 1.

Interventions to prevent future illnesses are of critical importance to childhood cancer survivors. The Partnership for Health intervention resulted in a doubling of smoking cessation quit rates. Because of the seriousness of smoking among childhood cancer survivors, this intervention model may be appropriate as a multicomponent treatment program for survivors who smoke.