1,721,023 research outputs found
Gender differences in survival across the ages of life: an introduction.
Full text linkThis thematic series explores the complex nature of the survival gap between genders across the lifespan. It highlights how, although women generally have a longer life expectancy than men globally, the complexity of this advantage challenges simplistic explanations. The text emphasizes several areas of interest, such as mortality differences between genders at different life stages, the aging process, and epidemiological differences between the sexes. Additionally, it discusses the role of biological and socio-behavioral factors in explaining the female survival advantage and how this gap has evolved and been influenced by historical, behavioral, and lifestyle changes. With six compelling articles from diverse disciplinary angles, this series underscores the interdisciplinary approach essential for unraveling the intricacies of gender differences in survival across the lifespan.</p
Understanding Health Deterioration and the Dynamic Relationship between Physical Ability and Cognition among a Cohort of Danish Nonagenarians
Full text linkThis study aims to determine how demographics, socioeconomic characteristics, and lifestyle affect physical and cognitive health transitions among nonagenarians, whether these transitions follow the same patterns, and how each dimension affects the transitions of the other. We applied a multistate model for panel data to 2262 individuals over a 2-year follow-up period from the 1905 Danish Cohort survey. Within two years from baseline, the transition probability from good to bad physical health—ability to stand up from a chair—was higher than dying directly (29% vs. 25%), while this was not observed for cognition (24% vs. 27%) evaluated with Mini-Mental State Examination—a score lower than 24 indicates poor cognitive health. Probability of dying either from bad physical or cognitive health condition was 50%. Health transitions were associated with sex, education, living alone, body mass index, and physical activity. Physical and cognitive indicators were associated with deterioration of cognitive and physical status, respectively, and with survivorship from a bad health condition. We conclude that physical and cognitive health deteriorated differently among nonagenarians, even if they were related to similar sociodemographic and lifestyle characteristics and resulted dynamically related with each other
Functional data analysis approach in population studies: an application to the gender gap in life expectancy
Full text linkThis work analyses the contribution of ages and causes of death to gender gap in life expectancy
in 20 European and non-European countries between 1959 and 2015, using Functional
Data Analysis. Data were retrieved from the WHO Mortality Database and from the
Human Mortality Database. We propose a Functional Principal Component Analysis of
the age profiles of cause-specific contributions, to identify the main components of the distribution
of the age-specific contributions according to causes of death, and to summarize
them with few components. Our findings show that the narrowing gender gap in life expectancy
was mainly driven by decreasing differences in cardiovascular diseases. Additionally,
the study reveals that the age cause contributions act almost entirely on only two dimensions:
level (extent of the cause-specific contribution to the overall mortality gender gap)
and age pattern (location of the curves across ages). Notably, in the last period, it is not
the "quantum" of the cause-specific contributions that matters, but the "timing", i.e. location
across the age spectrum. Moreover, our results show that in the most recent period the
gender gap in life expectancy is affected by composition of the causes of death more than it
was in previous periods. We emphasise that Functional Data Analysis could prove useful to
deepen our understanding of complex demographic phenomena
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Generalized extreme value distribution for identifying the controversial mortality plateau
No full textopenIn questa tesi viene presentato l'approccio dei valori estremi per individuare il tanto discusso tema del "late-life mortality deceleration". Viene adattata la distribuzione generalizzata dei valori estremi ai decessi in un dato anno e stato per gli anni dal 1960 al 2016 e per 8 stati longevi o che fanno ricavare interessanti spunti di riflessione sul tema. Non si nota un forte rallentamento dei tassi di mortalità, ma una stabilizzazione dei quantili molto estremi della distribuzione, in particolare nel Giappone, paese noto come il più longevo di tutti. Lo studio vuole essere una base solida per eventuali futuri approfondimenti più avanzati
The Effect of Mortality Shocks on the Age-Pattern of Adult Mortality
No full textThis article aims to investigate the effect of sudden changes in external conditions on human mortality levels and age-patterns. Although several studies have analysed shocking events such as famines or deportations, a systematic assessment of the effect of the shock on the rate of mortality increase by age is missing. In the case of a shock, three scenarios may occur: mortality may be raised proportionally at all ages, more at older ages, or more at younger ages. Two cases of natural mortality experiments were analysed: Australian civilian prisoners in a Japanese camp during the Second World War and the Ukrainian Famine of 1933. The death rates of the prisoners of war were higher during imprisonment but the slope of the curve appeared to resemble that of the normal mortality regime. During the Ukrainian Famine, by contrast, the mortality curves in the different famine years were raised but the increase was smaller at old ages, resulting in different slopes. When mortality increases less at older ages, the evidence that selection could be the underlying mechanism appears to be weak and inconclusive. However, as other mechanisms could lead to similar patterns, more cases of natural morality experiments need to be analysed and more evidence collected
Post-War Migration Flows and Disparities in Mortality from Age 50 Years Onwards:the Case of Turin in Italy
Full text linkCompositional changes due to internal migration can modify the distribution of health outcomes, death rates, and socio-economic characteristics of a specific geographical area. Migration flows may affect patterns of socio-economic inequalities in mortality as well. However, despite these inequalities being an important social and geopolitical feature of an area, there is still little empirical evidence on this effect. This paper contributes to deepening the knowledge about this phenomenon by investigating whether post-war internal migration in Italy affected the pattern of mortality inequality by socio-economic status, from age 50 years onwards, in Turin, one of the main industrial areas of the country, to which many low-educated individuals from the southern regions migrated, seeking jobs in the car factories. Migrants might be selected in terms of robustness because of the healthy migrant effect. However, low-educated individuals are employed in heavier and riskier jobs. They thus undergo a faster health selection due to exposure to a higher mortality risk that selects the most robust individuals. This paper hypothesised that the interplay of these mechanisms might have produced a homogenisation process towards robustness of the population by reducing the unobserved heterogeneity in survival chances and that these processes affected men more than women, because women were likely to be more passive actors in the migratory decisions and less heavily involved in the industrialisation process. The results show that women have higher levels of heterogeneity in susceptibility to death and wider differentials mortality by education level than men, which both support the hypotheses
Unobserved Heterogeneity of Frailty in the Analysis of Socioeconomic Differences in Health and Mortality
No full textThe concepts of unobserved frailty and selection have been extensively analyzed with respect to phenomena like mortality deceleration at old ages and mortality convergence or cross overs between populations (for example American black and white populations, men and women). Despite the long-time observation of converging mortality risks in differential socioeconomic mortality research, the interest in the connection between frailty, selection, and health and mortality inequalities over a life course approach has increased only recently. This overview of the literature summarizes the main concepts of unobserved frailty and socioeconomic differences in mortality and how frailty and selection relate to these differences at old ages. It then reviews the evidence coming from the existing studies. Although the number of studies is still limited, the body of research on unobserved frailty and socioeconomic inequalities in health and mortality in a life course approach is growing. The results, however, are contradictory, and whether selection plays a major role in shaping the observed socioeconomic mortality patterns at old ages is still controversial
- …
