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Is Exposure To Income Inequality A Public Health Concern? Lagged Effects Of Income Inequality On Individual And Population Health, Jennifer M. Mellor, Jeffrey Milyo

Arts & Sciences Articles

Objective. To examine the health consequences of exposure to income inequality.

Data Sources. Secondary analysis employing data from several publicly available sources. Measures of individual health status and other individual characteristics are obtained from the March Current Population Survey (CPS). State-level income inequality is measured by the Gini coefficient based on family income, as reported by the U.S. Census Bureau and Al-Samarrie and Miller (1967). State-level mortality rates are from the Vital Statistics of the United States; other state-level characteristics are from U.S. census data as reported in the Statistical Abstract of the United States.

Study Design. We …

On The Importance Of Age-Adjustment Methods In Ecological Studies Of Social Determinants Of Mortality, Jeffrey Milyo, Jennifer M. Mellor

Arts & Sciences Articles

Objective. To illustrate the potential sensitivity of ecological associations between mortality and certain socioeconomic factors to different methods of age-adjustment.

Data Sources. Secondary analysis employing state-level data from several publicly available sources. Crude and age-adjusted mortality rates for 1990 are obtained from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. The Gini coefficient for family income and percent of persons below the federal poverty line are from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Putnam's (2000) Social Capital Index was downloaded from http://www.bowlingalone.com; the Social Mistrust Index was calculated from responses to the General Social Survey, following the method described in Kawachi et …