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Biomedical subjects

J Bound

Publications and source records attributed to J Bound.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2001

Inequality in life expectancy, functional status, and active life expectancy across selected black and white populations in the United States.

We calculated population-level estimates of mortality, functional health, and active life expectancy for black and white adults living in a diverse set of 23 local areas in 1990, and nationwide. At age 16, life expectancy and active life expectancy vary across the local populations by as much as 28 and 25 years respectively. The relationship between population infirmity and longevity also varies. Rural residents outlive urban residents, but their additional years are primarily inactive. Among urban residents, those in more affluent areas outlive those in high-poverty areas. For both whites and blacks, these gains represent increases in active years. For whites alone they also reflect reductions in years spent in poor health.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed1999

Health inequality and population variation in fertility-timing.

We estimate the impact of fertility-timing on the chances that children in poor urban African American communities will have surviving and able-bodied parents until maturity. To do so, we use census and vital statistics data to compute age- and sex-specific rates of mortality and functional limitation among prime-aged adult residents of impoverished African American areas in Harlem, Detroit, Chicago, and the Watts area of Los Angeles and for blacks and whites nationwide. Findings are consistent with the hypothesis that the early fertility-timing characteristic of poor urban African American populations mitigates some of the costs to families associated with excess mortality and early health deterioration in young through middle adulthood.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1999

Poverty, time, and place: variation in excess mortality across selected US populations, 1980-1990.

STUDY OBJECTIVE: To describe variation in levels and causes of excess mortality and temporal mortality change among young and middle aged adults in a regionally diverse set of poor local populations in the USA. DESIGN: Using standard demographic techniques, death certificate and census data were analysed to make sex specific population level estimates of 1980 and 1990 death rates for residents of selected areas of concentrated poverty. For comparison, data for whites and blacks nationwide were analysed. SETTING: African American communities in Harlem, Central City Detroit, Chicago's south side, the Louisiana Delta, the Black Belt region of Alabama, and Eastern North Carolina. Non-Hispanic white communities in Cleveland, Detroit, Appalachian Kentucky, South Central Louisiana, Northeastern Alabama, and Western North Carolina. PARTICIPANTS: All black residents or all white residents of each specific community and in the nation, 1979-1981 and 1989-1991. MAIN RESULTS: Substantial variability exists in levels, trends, and causes of excess mortality in poor populations across localities. African American residents of urban/northern communities suffer extremely high and growing rates of excess mortality. Rural residents exhibit an important mortality advantage that widens over the decade. Homicide deaths contribute little to the rise in excess mortality, nor do AIDS deaths contribute outside of specific localities. Deaths attributable to circulatory disease are the leading cause of excess mortality in most locations. CONCLUSIONS: Important differences exist among persistently impoverished populations in the degree to which their poverty translates into excess mortality. Social epidemiological inquiry and health promotion initiatives should be attentive to local conditions. The severely disadvantageous mortality profiles experienced by urban African Americans relative to the rural poor and to national averages call for understanding.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1998

Use of census-based aggregate variables to proxy for socioeconomic group: evidence from national samples.

Increasingly, investigators append census-based socioeconomic characteristics of residential areas to individual records to address the problem of inadequate socioeconomic information on health data sets. Little empirical attention has been given to the validity of this approach. The authors estimate health outcome equations using samples from nationally representative data sets linked to census data. They investigate whether statistical power is sensitive to the timing of census data collection or to the level of aggregation of the census data; whether different census items are conceptually distinct; and whether the use of multiple aggregate measures in health outcome equations improves prediction compared with a single aggregate measure. The authors find little difference in estimates when using 1970 compared with 1980 US Bureau of the Census data or zip code compared with tract level variables. However, aggregate variables are highly multicollinear. Associations of health outcomes with aggregate measures are substantially weaker than with microlevel measures. The authors conclude that aggregate measures can not be interpreted as if they were microlevel variables nor should a specific aggregate measure be interpreted to represent the effects of what it is labeled.

Censuses↗
PubMed1998

Coding geographic areas across census years: creating consistent definitions of metropolitan areas.

"This paper presents suggested matches for the geographical coding (geocoding) of metropolitan areas in the 1970, 1980, and 1990 Censuses. The Census Bureau used different definitions and taxonomies to describe the geography of metropolitan areas in these three Census years. As a result, the geographical areas referred to by the standard Census Bureau definitions differ among the three Census data sets. The geographic matching scheme explained in this paper attempts to maximize consistency over time for metropolitan areas in the U.S."

Americas↗
PubMed1996

Excess mortality among blacks and whites in the United States.

BACKGROUND: Although the general relations between race, socioeconomic status, and mortality in the United States are well known, specific patterns of excess mortality are not well understood. METHODS: Using standard demographic techniques, we analyzed death certificates and census data and made sex-specific population-level estimates of the 1990 death rates for people 15 to 64 years of age. We studied mortality among blacks in selected areas of New York City, Detroit, Los Angeles, and Alabama (in one area of persistent poverty and one higher-income area each) and among whites in areas of New York City, metropolitan Detroit, Kentucky, and Alabama (one area of poverty and one higher-income area each). Sixteen areas were studied in all. RESULTS: When they were compared with the nationwide age-standardized annual death rate for whites, the death rates for both sexes in each of the poverty areas were excessive, especially among blacks (standardized mortality ratios for men and women in Harlem, 4.11 and 3.38; in Watts, 2.92 and 2.60; in central Detroit, 2.79 and 2.58; and in the Black Belt area of Alabama, 1.81 and 1.89). Boys in Harlem who reached the age of 15 had a 37 percent chance of surviving to the age of 65; for girls, the likelihood was 65 percent. Of the higher-income black areas studied, Queens--Bronx had the income level most similar to that of whites and the lowest standardized mortality ratio (men, 1.18; women, 1.08). Of the areas where poor whites were studied, Detroit had the highest standardized mortality ratios (men, 2.01; women, 1.90). On the Lower East Side of Manhattan, in Appalachia, and in Northeast Alabama, the ratios for whites were below the national average for blacks (men, 1.90; women, 1.95). CONCLUSIONS: Although differences in mortality rates before the age of 65 between advantaged and disadvantaged groups in the United States are sometimes vast, there are important differences among impoverished communities in patterns of excess mortality.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1996

Worker adaptation and employer accommodation following the onset of a health impairment.

The responses of workers and their employers to the onset of work-limiting health impairments were investigated using data from the new Health and Retirement Study. The results indicate that many workers who suffer from health limitations are directly accommodated by their employers, and that those those who do not receive direct accommodation frequently adapt to their limitations by altering their job demands or by changing jobs. These findings point to the potential for adjustments on both sides of the market: by employers, in the form of job accommodation, and by employees, in the form of job change.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1996

Race differences in labor force attachment and disability status.

We used the first wave of the Health and Retirement Survey to study the effect of health on the labor force activity of black and white men and women in their 50s. The evidence we present confirms the notion that health is an extremely important determinant of early labor force exit. Our estimates suggest that health differences between blacks and whites can account for most of the racial gap in labor force attachment for men. For women, when participation rates are comparable, our estimates imply that black women would be substantially more likely to work than white women were it not for the marked health differences. We also found for both men and women that poor health has a substantially larger effect on labor force behavior for blacks. The evidence suggests that these differences result from black/white differences in access to the resources necessary to retire.

Black or African American↗
PubMed1995

The illusion of failure: trends in the self-reported health of the U.S. elderly.

Data from the National Health Interview Survey showed a trend toward worsening self-reported health among older American men and women during the 1970s. This evidence--combined with the significant declines in age-specific mortality observed since the 1960s--led some researchers to suggest that the health of the older population is declining. An examination of recent trends in self-reported health indicates that the health declines observed during the 1970s generally reversed during the 1980s. This reversal not only belies the argument that lower adult mortality implies worse health, but also challenges the belief that trends in self-reported health during the 1970s reflected actual health declines. A more plausible explanation is that changes in the social and economic forces, combined with earlier diagnosis of preexisting conditions, influenced the options available for responding to health problems.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed1993

Activities and products for the Third Age.

Designers, ergonomists and professionals with an interest in ageing were surveyed (by questionnaire) for their opinions and attitudes towards existing and potential products and services for the Third Age. They were also questioned on lifestyle expectations for their own Third Age. There is much work that needs to be done, both by ergonomists, in mapping out the needs of a changed society, and by designers, in building up an understanding of the issues and translating that understanding into guidelines, tools and strategies to underpin design in the future.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1993

Age patterns of smoking in US black and white women of childbearing age.

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of the study was to describe age patterns of smoking among Black and White women of reproductive age, with cohort membership controlled for. METHOD: Data from the 1987 National Health Interview Survey Cancer Supplement, weighted to be nationally representative, were used to calculate the fractions of women who were ever smokers, quitters, and current smokers by age and race. Summary distributions of age patterns of smoking behaviors by race were estimated; proportional hazard models were used to avoid confounding of age and cohort. RESULTS: White women begin smoking at younger ages than do Blacks but are more likely to quit and to do so at young ages. Rates of current smoking converge between Blacks and Whites by age 25, and may cross over by 30. Education-standardized results show larger Black-White differentials in ever smoking and smaller differences in quitting. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings confirm that women's age patterns of smoking vary by race. Age x race interactions should be considered in smoking research and anti-tobacco interventions. For Black women, delayed initiation and failure to quit call for increased emphasis on interventions tailored to adults. These findings have possible implications for understanding Black-White differences in low birthweight, child health, and women's health.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1992

Changes in the structure of wages in the 1980's: an evaluation of alternative explanations.

During the 1980's, a period in which the average level of real wage rates was roughly stagnant, there were large changes in the structure of relative wages, most notably a huge increase in the relative wages of highly educated workers. This paper attempts to assess the power of several alternative explanations of the observed relative wage changes in the context of a theoretical framework that nests all of these explanations. Our conclusion is that their major cause was a shift in the skill structure of labor demand brought about by biased technological change.

Educational Status↗
PubMed1991

Poverty dynamics in widowhood.

Data from a national sample of widows of all ages were used to examine links between poverty and widowhood. We found that widowhood drops living standards by 18 percent, on average, and pushes 10 percent of women whose incomes were above the poverty line prior to widowhood into poverty after it. Not surprisingly, economic status prior to widowhood is the strongest predictor of status during widowhood. Striking in the data is the instability of family income during widowhood, producing substantial numbers of exits from poverty.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1990

A note on the measurement of hypertension in HHANES.

Using data from the HHANES, we found the rates of elevated blood pressure readings on clinical examination to be extremely low for a sample of Mexican American and Puerto Rican women. The prevalence rates were one-fourth to one-fifth the rates found for a comparable sample of White women from NHANESII. These findings are discrepant with the little that is known about hypertension prevalence among Hispanics and with estimates of hypertension prevalence for Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans drawn from NHANESII. While our HHANES samples women had much lower rates of clinical high blood pressure than Whites, they reported hypertension histories in excess of Whites. Rates of medicine usage among Hispanics were insufficiently large for effective treatment to explain the disparity. The prevalence estimates increased, but the relative discrepancies remained when we altered our sample specifications and clinical high blood pressure measure. A possible explanation for these discrepancies is that few physicians performed the majority of blood pressure readings in our HHANES sample. This may have been statistically inefficient. The discrepancies noted suggest that HHANES may not be a reliable source of information on hypertension among Hispanic women.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1990

Black/white differences in women's reproductive-related health status: evidence from vital statistics.

Maternal-age-specific neonatal mortality risk differs by race, with the mid-20s risk low for whites but not blacks. This may be partially due to worsening health for black relative to white women. We analyzed deaths to young women in the aggregate and classified by causes that are also pregnancy risk factors. Over the predominant child-bearing ages, mortality increases for blacks exceeded those for whites, usually by at least 25%. These indicators that black/white health differences widen as women progress through young adulthood suggest that such discrepancies may play a role in the black/white infant mortality differential, which merits further research.

Adolescent↗