Richard G. Rogers

Religious involvement and U.S. adult mortality.

We use recently released, nationally representative data from the National Health Interview Survey—Multiple Cause of Death linked file to model the association of religious attendance and sociodemographic, health, and behavioral correlates with overall and cause-specific mortality. Religious attendance is associated with U.S. adult mortality in a graded fashion: People who never attend exhibit 1.87 times the risk of death in the follow-up period compared with people who attend more than once a week. This translates into a seven-year difference in life expectancy at age 20 between those who never attend and those who attend more than once a week. Health selectivity is responsible for a portion of the religious attendance effect: People who do not attend church or religious services are also more likely to be unhealthy and, conse-quently, to die. However, religious attendance also works through increased social ties and behavioral factors to decrease the risks of death. And although the magnitude of the association between religious attendance and mortality varies by cause of death, the direction of the association is consistent across causes.

Neighborhood social context and racial differences in women's heart disease mortality

Compared to white women, black women experience similar rates of heart disease morbidity, but higher rates of heart disease mortality. This puzzling relationship may be due to several factors working at varied levels to affect each race. For example, the high heart disease mortality rate may be due to individual health or socioeconomic risk factors or to social structural factors. We conduct a multi-level analysis to address these issues, using data from a newly released data file that links the National Health Interview Survey with death certificate information from the National Death Index, and with additional community level data from the 1990 Census STF-3A files. We are primarily interested in the effects of female-headship rates in the census tracts on coronary heart disease mortality (CHD) among black and white women. We find that women who live in communities with high concentrations of female-headed families are more likely to die of heart disease, net of other characteristics. For younger women, the effect appears to be routed primarily through poverty whereas for older women the effect of female-headship rates remains, net of other census tract characteristics. This study, then, highlights the importance of examining the effect of neighborhoods and their social content on mortality.

Living and dying in the U.S.A.: sociodemographic determinants of death among blacks and whites

This paper examines the demographic and social factors associated with differences in length of life by race. The results demonstrate that sociodemographic factors—age, sex, marital status, family size, and income—profoundly affect black and white mortality. Indeed, the racial gap in overall mortality could close completely with increased standards of living and improved lifestyles. Moreover, examining cause-specific mortality while adjusting for social factors shows that compared to whites, blacks have a lower mortality risk from respiratory diseases, accidents. and suicide; the same risk from circulatory diseases and cancer; and higher risks from infectious diseases, homicide, and diabetes. These results underscore the importance of examining social characteristics to understand more clearly the race differences in overall and cause-specific mortality.

The effects of family composition, health, and social support linkages on mortality

This study reveals how family living arrangements influence mortality. I use the National Health Interview Survey, Supplement on Aging, and discrete-time hazard rate models to show that some family arrangements result from strong social bonds, but others are a result of financial needs or health problems. In some instances, it is not family living arrangements that influence the risk of mortality but vice versa: The family rearranges itself to deal with ill health and disability among its members. The family strives to promote health, prevent disease, and encourage economic security. However, family members who endure economic or health hardships face increased risk of death.

Religious involvement and adult mortality in the United States: review and perspective.

Objectives: The scientific community has recently taken a serious interest in the relation between religious involvement and adult mortality risk in the United States. We review this literature, highlighting key findings, limitations, and future challenges. Methods: Literature from medicine, epidemiology, and the social sciences is included. Results: Taken together, the existing research indicates that religious involvement is related to US adult mortality risks. The evidence is strongest for public religious attendance and across specific religious denominations. The evidence is weakest for private religious activity. The mechanisms by which religious involvement appear to influence mortality include aspects of social integration, social regulation, and psychological resources. Conclusions: The religion-mortality literature has developed in both size and quality over the past decade. Fruitful avenues for continued research include the analysis of (1) more dimensions of religious involvement, including religious life histories; (2) population subgroups, including specific race/ethnic and socioeconomic populations; and (3) a richer set of social, psychologic, and behavioral mechanisms by which religion may be related to mortality.

Life expectancies of cigarette smokers and nonsmokers in the United States

This research employs the National Health Interview and the National Mortality Followback Surveys to calculate life expectancies by age and sex for white nonsmokers, former smokers, and current smokers in the United States in 1986. In general, life expectancies are higher for never smokers than for former smokers, and higher for former smokers than for current smokers. Heavy smokers have lower life expectancies than persons with all other smoking statuses; indeed, compared to never smokers, heavy smokers at age 25 can expect at least a 25% shorter life. Gender differences in life expectancies were found to persist even with the elimination of smoking. Differences in life expectancy by sex thus appear to be due, in part, to cigarette smoking, but also to occupational, environmental, and sociodemographic factors.

Trends in the educational gradient of U.S. Adult mortality from 1986 through 2006 by race, gender, and age group

The educational gradient of U.S. adult mortality became steeper between 1960 and the mid-1980s, but whether it continued to steepen is less clear given a dearth of attention to these trends since then. This study provides new evidence on trends in the education-mortality gradient from 1986 through 2006 by race, gender, and age among non-Hispanic Whites and Blacks using data from the 2010 release of the National Health Interview Survey Linked Mortality File. Results show that for White and Black men, the gradient steepened among older ages because declines in mortality risk across education levels were greater among the higher educated. The gradient steepened among White women, and to a lesser extent among Black women, because mortality risk decreased among the college-educated but increased among women with less than a high school diploma. Greater returns to higher education and compositional changes within educational strata likely contributed to the trends.

Socioeconomic Status, Smoking, and Health: A Test of Competing Theories of Cumulative Advantage∗

Although both low socioeconomic status and cigarette smoking increase health problems and mortality, their possible combined or interactive influence is less clear. On one hand, the health of low status groups may be harmed least by unhealthy behavior such as smoking because, given the substantial health risks produced by limited resources, they have less to lose from damaging lifestyles. On the other hand, the health of low status groups may be harmed most by smoking because lifestyle choices exacerbate the health problems created by deprived material conditions. Alternatively, the harm of low status and smoking may accumulate additively rather than multiplicatively. We test these arguments with data from the 1990 U.S. National Health Interview Survey, and with measures of morbidity and mortality. For ascribed statuses such as gender, race, and ethnicity, and for the outcome measure of mortality, the results favor the additive argument, whereas for achieved status and morbidity, the results support the vulnerability hypothesis—that smoking inflicts greater harm among disadvantaged groups.

Active life among the elderly in the United States: multistate life-table estimates and population projections.

Calculations of multistate life expectancy not only measure how long a population may live beyond a certain age, but also what fractions of this continuing lifetime will be spent in an independent or dependent status. Many Americans aged 70 and over are leading long, active lives; large numbers of individuals who become dependent, moreover, do so temporarily and return to independent status. Men and women have disparate total and active life expectancies, however, reflecting differential survival patterns and varying rates of transition among statuses. Policy makers must consider the increased size of the future elderly population, and changes in its age composition and functional status, when planning relevant health services.

The Enduring Association between Education and Mortality The Role of Widening and Narrowing Disparities

This article examines how educational disparities in mortality emerge, grow, decline, and disappear across causes of death in the United States, and how these changes contribute to the enduring association between education and mortality over time. Focusing on adults age 40 to 64 years, we first examine the extent to which educational disparities in mortality persisted from 1989 to 2007. We then test the fundamental cause prediction that educational disparities in mortality persist, in part, by shifting to new health outcomes over time. We focus on the period from 1999 to 2007, when all causes of death were coded to the same classification system. Results indicate (1) substantial widening and narrowing of educational disparities in mortality across causes of death, (2) almost all causes of death with increasing mortality rates also had widening educational disparities, and (3) the total educational disparity in mortality would be about 25 percent smaller today if not for newly emergent and growing educational disparities since 1999. These results point to the theoretical and policy importance of identifying social forces that cause health disparities to widen over time.