Elo, Irma T.
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Publication Consistency of Age Reporting By Cause of Death Among Elderly African-American Decedents(1996-07-18) Hussey, Jon M.; Elo, Irma T.Because age is associated with many biological and social phenomena, accurate age data are critical for researchers exploring the societal impact of population aging and for policy makers deciding how to best allocate resources to this burgeoning group. Of particular importance is the quality of age data for the rapidly expanding elderly population. Past research has shown the quality of these data to be questionable for the U.S. elderly population, particularly for African-Americans (Hambright 1969; Kestenbaum 1992; National Center for Health Statistics [NC HS] 1968; Rosenwaike 1979; Rosenwaike and Logue 1983). A recent study comparing 1987 death certificates from Massachusetts and Texas with matched Social Security/Medicare files, for example, found exact age agreement in the two data sources for 94.6% of non-Hispanic whites aged 65 and over but only for 72. 6% of African Americans (Kestenbaum 1992: Table 4). Age agreement deteriorated more rapidly with advancing age among blacks than among whites; for those aged 85 and over, exact age agreement was found for 91.7% of non-Hispanic whites compared with only 63.2% of African Americans.Publication Using Successive Censuses to Reconstruct the African-American Population, 1930-1990(1996-12-01) Preston, Samuel H.; Elo, Irma T.; Gale, LynnThe Census Bureau's program to estimate the completeness of decennial census counts for age, sex, and race groups relies principally upon what it terms "demographic analysis." The essence of this approach is to introduce extraneous information on the number of births, deaths, and migrations, derived from non-census sources, to estimate the true size of each birth cohort at the time of a census (Robinson et al., 1993; Himes and Clogg, 1992). Comparison of this alternative estimate to the census count provides an estimate of the degree of under - or over-enumeration in the census, often termed the census undercount. Acceptance of the estimated undercount implies that the census itself is irrelevant to estimating the true size of the population; whatever deficiencies it contained would be accurately and completely revealed by comparison to the estimate based on demographic analysis.Publication Adult Mortality Among Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders: A Review of the Evidence(1996-10-01) Elo, Irma T.Mortality estimates have consistently pointed to a sizable health advantage for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders compared to white Americans, but a question remains as to whether mortality estimates for Asian/Pacific Islanders are reliable. This paper presents mortality estimates for Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, Other Asian and Pacific Islanders, all Asian and Pacific Islanders combined, and for white Americans in 1989-91 based on vital statistics and census data, and for Asian and Pacific Islanders and whites based on the National Longitudinal Mortality Survey. The paper reviews evidence on data quality and discusses possible biases in estimated death rates. It ends with a brief discussion of cause specific mortality differentials. Relative to whites, Asian and Pacific Islanders are found to have lower mortality at ages 25 and above. Lower death rates from heart disease and cancer among Asian/Pacific Islanders than white Americans account for most of the all cause differentials at ages 45+. Substantial uncertainty remains, however, about the exact level of mortality among Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders residing in the United States.Publication Black-White Differentials in Cause-Specific Mortality in the United States during the 1980s: The Role of Medical Care and Health Behaviors(2006-11-09) Elo, Irma T.; Drevenstedt, Greg L.In this paper, we examine black-white differences in cause-specific mortality during the 1980s when black-white disparities in mortality widened in the United States. We group causes of death to those amenable to medical intervention, those closely linked to health behaviors or residential location, and all other causes combined. At older ages, we treat cardiovascular disease, stroke, and forms of cancer not amenable to medical or behavioral intervention as distinct causes. We conduct separate analyses by gender and age group. Causes of death amenable to medical intervention and those linked to health behaviors and residential location accounted for over 60% of the absolute black-white difference in male and female mortality at ages 25-44, male mortality at ages 45-74, but somewhat less than 50% of the black-white difference in female mortality at these older ages. The relative black excess risk was most pronounced for causes amenable to medical intervention with and without adjustment for socio-demographic characteristics.Publication Early Life Conditions and Cause-Specific Mortality in Finland(2010-02-01) Elo, Irma T.; Martikainen, Pekka; Myrskylä, MikkoThe purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between early life socioeconomic status, household structure and adult all cause and cause-specific mortality in Finland during the latter half of the twentieth century. We base the analyses on a 10% sample of households drawn from the 1950 Finnish Census of Population with the follow-up of household members in subsequent censuses and death records beginning from the end of 1970 through the end of 1998. The Finnish data constitute a unique register based data set that does not rely on individual recall of early life social conditions, parental educational attainment, family type, and other life course trajectories. We find significant associations between early life social and family conditions on all cause mortality as well as mortality from cardiovascular and alcohol related diseases, accidents and violence; with protective effects of higher childhood SES varying between 10% and 30%. These associations are mediated through adult educational attainment and other socio-demographic characteristics. The results imply that long-term adverse health consequences of disadvantaged early life social circumstances may be mitigated by investments in educational and employment opportunities in early adulthood.Publication Own and Parents’ Schooling as Predictors of Cognition: Findings from the Longitudinal Chilean Social Protection Survey(2021-04-01) Elo, Irma T.; Behrman, Jere R.; Bravo, David; Mani, Sneha; Beccara, Alejandro SanchezA large literature on the predictive powers of own schooling, and increasingly one’s parents’ schooling on cognitive and physical health of aging individuals focuses on high-income countries. There is a paucity of studies for other contexts, including Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). We use data from the longitudinal Chilean Social Protection Survey to investigate associations between one’s own schooling, one’s parents’ schooling, childhood family economic status and cognition of aging adults in a country that differs substantially from the U.S. and from other LAC countries. We further test whether these associations differ by gender. Our estimates suggest that own schooling significantly predicts cognition and that parental (particularly maternal) schooling and childhood family socioeconomic status are significant predictors of cognition. We also find significant heterogeneities in associations between the respondents’ own schooling and cognition for women and men.Publication New Insights into the Far Eastern Pattern of Mortality(1997) Gragnolati, Michele; Elo, Irma T.; Goldman, NoreenThe Far Eastern pattern of mortality, first identified in 1980, is characterized by some of the largest sex differentials at adult ages to be found anywhere in the world. These atypically high levels of excess male mortality were present in several Far Eastern populations during the 1960s and 1970s and have progressively disappeared since that time. This study uses cause of death data to determine the diseases responsible for the existence and attenuation of these sex differences in Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan. The analysis focuses primarily on two hypotheses – regarding the roles of respiratory tuberculosis and liver diseases associated with hepatitis B infection – which were proposed to explain the Far Eastern pattern but were never tested. The results of our analysis indicate that respiratory tuberculosis is the single most important cause underlying the existence and attenuation of the Far Eastern pattern, that the role of liver diseases is far from clear cut, and that other causes (such as cardiovascular diseases) are important as well. Some of the risk factors which may underlie these exceptional mortality patterns are identified.Publication Africans in the American Labor Market(2015-08-25) Elo, Irma T.; Frankenberg, Elizabeth; Thomas, Duncan; Gansey, RomeoThe number of migrants to the United States from Africa has grown exponentially since the 1930s. For the first time in America’s history, migrants born in Africa are growing at a faster rate than migrants from any other continent. The composition of African-origin migrants has also changed dramatically: in the midtwentieth century, the majority were white and came from only three countries; but today, about one-fifth are white, and African-origin migrants hail from across the entire continent. Little is known about the implications of these changes for their labor market outcomes in the United States. Using the 2000–2011 waves of the American Community Survey, we present a picture of enormous heterogeneity in labor market participation, sectoral choice, and hourly earnings of male and female migrants by country of birth, race, age at arrival in the United States, and human capital. For example, controlling a rich set of human capital and demographic characteristics, some migrants— such as those from South Africa/Zimbabwe and Cape Verde, who typically enter on employment visas—earn substantial premiums relative to other African-origin migrants. These premiums are especially large among males who arrived after age 18. In contrast, other migrants—such as those from Sudan/Somalia, who arrived more recently, mostly as refugees—earn substantially less than migrants from other African countries. Understanding the mechanisms generating the heterogeneity in these outcomes— including levels of socioeconomic development, language, culture, and quality of education in countries of origin, as well as selectivity of those who migrate—figures prominently among important unresolved research questions.Publication Are Educational Differentials in Mortality Increasing in the United States?(1994-08-01) Preston, Samuel H.; Elo, Irma T.Because of the value that individuals place on health and longevity, levels of mortality are among the most central indicators of social and economic well-being. Analysts are concerned not only with the average level of mortality but also with its distribution among social groups, which is a fundamental indicator of social inequality. The principal dimension on which these assessments are now made in the United States is educational attainment. The decisive shift from occupational groups, the classic dimension used by the Registrar-General of England and Wales, to educational groups as the basis for assessment occurred with the publication of Kitagawa and Hauser's (1973) major study of American mortality differentials in 1960. Educational attainment has two main advantages relative to occupation and income, the other common indicators of social stratification. It is available for people who are not in the labor force; and its value is less influenced by health problems that develop in adulthood. Since health problems can lead to both high mortality and low income, comparisons of death rates of different income groups, for example, are biased by their mutual dependence on a third variable, the extent of ill health. For these reasons, educational attainment has become the principal social variable used in epidemiology as well as in demography (Liberatos et al. 1988).Publication Eliciting Maternal Subjective Expectations about the Technology of Cognitive Skill Formation(2013-06-17) Cunha, Flávio; Elo, Irma T.; Culhane, Jennifer F.In this paper, we formulate a model of early childhood development in which mothers have subjective expectations about the technology of skill formation. The model is useful for understanding how maternal knowledge about child development affects the maternal choices of investments in the human capital of children. Unfortunately, the model is not identified from data that are usually available to econometricians. To solve this problem, we conduct a study where mothers were interviewed to elicit maternal expectations about the technology of skill formation. We interviewed a sample of socioeconomically disadvantaged African‐American women. We find that the median subjective expectation about the elasticity of child development with respect to investments is between 4% and 19%. In comparison, when we estimate the technology of skill formation from the CNLSY/79 data, we find that the elasticity is between 18% and 26%. We use the model and our unique data to answer a simple but important question: What would happen to investments and child development if we implemented a policy that moved expectations from the median to the objective estimates that we obtain from the CNLSY/79 data? According to our estimates, maternal investments would go up by between 4% and 24% and the stocks of cognitive skills at age 24 months would subsequently increase between 1% and 5%. Needless to say, the impacts of such a policy would be even higher for mothers whose expectations were below the median.