Dr. Vijayvergia stresses that marriage itself is unlikely to be driving this. “If you take away the lifestyle factors that are linked with marriage, I think you may have different findings,” she says. “This is simply proof that preventative behaviors are important to prevent cancer.”

Unmarried people aren’t destined to develop cancer.

Of course, not everyone meets the right person or even wants to get married. Plenty of people also have long-term, committed relationships without being married, or have thriving social lives as a single person. If you fall into any of those categories, doctors stress that you’re not destined to develop cancer.

It’s not necessarily marriage itself that provides a protective effect, according to Dr. Pinheiro. “Marital status is really a marker of a bundle of exposures,” he says.

The data didn’t separate out people in long-term partnerships or those who are living with someone—those were classified as never married, Dr. Pinheiro points out. “If those partnerships provide similar levels of support and shared behaviors, then some of the same patterns could apply, and the differences we observe may be somewhat underestimated,” he says.

Dr. McNeill agrees. “I do think that being in a committed relationship likely confers similar benefits of reduced cancer risk to those married, in as much as those in a committed relationship are less likely to experience social isolation [and have] increased social support, which is also a protective of cancer incidence, and are more likely to engage in healthy behaviors,” she says.

Social support likely plays a role too. “Social support, whether through a partner, family, or community, can influence health behaviors, access to care, and adherence to screening and prevention,” Dr. Pinheiro says. “Marriage is one way to capture that at the population level, but it is not the only way. Strong support systems outside of marriage may confer advantages, but that requires more work.”