Determinants of Mortality at Older Ages: The Role of Biological Markers of Chronic Disease

Abstract

THE STUDY of mortality determinants has a long history in social science. Much of the early literature examined factors associated with mortality by estimating life tables for specific classifications of the population. These comparisons yielded insights on the relationship of mortality to age, sex, smoking habits, and socioeconomic variables, but they were less useful in revealing the simultaneous influence of multiple factors or the effect of measures beyond the classic socio-demographic variables in the demographer's toolkit. During the past few decades, the availability of micro-level data-especially from demographic and health interview surveys-and the concomitant use of multivariate models have permitted in-depth studies of the determinants of longevity (Elo and Preston 1996; Hayward and Gorman 2004). The resulting analyses have provided a better understanding of the complex mechanisms that mediate mortality risk. In particular, there is now a substantial literature investigating the salience of various self-reported dimensions of health for adult and old-age mortality (Hurd, McFadden, and