Couric married attorney John Paul "Jay" Monahan III in 1989. She gave birth to their first daughter, Elinor Tully "Ellie" Monahan, in Washington, D.C., on July 23, 1991; their second daughter, Caroline "Carrie" was born in New York City in 1996. Her husband died of colorectal cancer in 1998 at the age of 42. Couric then became a spokeswoman for colon cancer awareness. She underwent a colonoscopy on-air in March 2000, and, according to a study published in 2003 in "Archives of Internal Medicine", may have inspired many others to get checked as well: "Katie Couric's televised colon cancer awareness campaign was temporarily associated with an increase in colonoscopy use in two different data sets. This illustrates the possibility that a well-known individual can draw attention and support to worthwhile causes."