Thursday, 06/24/2021, 3:00 pm. ARCHIVED EVENT
Life course theories suggest that geographic disparities in mortality may reflect a history of place-based exposures rather than (or in addition to) contemporaneous exposures; yet few studies examined early life place exposures and later life mortality in the US due to data limitations. Using nationally representative data of nearly 100,000 adults over age 50 from the National Longitudinal Mortality Study, we estimated individual mortality risk using multi-level logistic regression with state of birth and state of residence as second-level random effects. We also decomposed state-of-residence random effects to compare “movers” and “stayers.” Our results indicate that state of birth is a stronger predictor of age-, race/ethnicity- and sex-adjusted mortality in the US than state of residence at the time of death. The adult mortality profiles of many states are substantially impacted by the composition of “movers.” Measures of geographic residence across the life course can improve models of adult mortality in the US and inform interventions to address geographic disparities in longevity.
Wei Xu is an assistant scientist at the Center for Demography of Health and Aging (CDHA) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He got his Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Trained as a health geographer, his research examines geographical inequalities in health outcomes related to older age and the ways in which our social, natural, and built environmental exposures over the life course shape older age health and related disparities. He has authored publications in the journals Spatial and Spatio-temporal Epidemiology, Alzheimer’s & Dementia, Social Science & Medicine, BMC Public Health and SSM-Population Health.
