H Preston
Biographic Data
| ID | 37118 |
|---|---|
| NAME | H Preston |
| GIVEN NAMES | H |
| FAMILY NAME | Preston |
| SIGNATURE | PRESTON H |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Pennsylvania |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7038-9689 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 133 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 2299 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 133 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1969 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 25 |
Evolution of the US nonmetropolitan mortality disadvantage by sex, state, and year, 1999‐2019
PURPOSE: To examine disparities in nonmetropolitan and metropolitan mortality by state and sex from 1999 to 2019. METHODS: We calculate age-standardized mortality rates for nonmetropolitan and metropolitan areas by state and sex and compute age-standardized differences in these rates within each state and relative to the national average. We further estimate the number of excess deaths in nonmetropolitan areas by state. These are deaths that woul…
Covid-19 and All-Cause Mortality by Race, Ethnicity, and Age Across Five Periods of the Pandemic in the United States
Racial/ethnic and age disparities in COVID-19 and all-cause mortality during 2020 are well documented, but less is known about their evolution over time. We examine changes in age-specific mortality across five pandemic periods in the United States from March 2020 to December 2022 among four racial/ethnic groups (non-Hispanic White, non-Hispanic Black, Hispanic, and non-Hispanic Asian) for ages 35+. We fit Gompertz models to all-cause and COVID-1…
Fatal Years
This is a history of the creation of the book Fatal Years: Child Mortality in late-Nineteenth-Century America (1991) by the authors. The data were a sample of households from the 1900 United States Census manuscripts. The primary method used was indirect estimation of child mortality (approximately ages 0–4) using information on the age and marriage duration of women. Among the findings were overall lower overall mortality than in the 1900/1902 G…
County-level estimates of excess mortality associated with Covid-19 in the United States
The COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. has been largely monitored using death certificates containing reference to COVID-19. However, prior analyses reveal that a significant percentage of excess deaths associated with the pandemic were not directly assigned to COVID-19. In this study, we estimated a generalized linear model of expected mortality based on historical trends in deaths by county of residence between 2011 and 2019. We used the results of …
The unequal burden of the Covid-19 pandemic
Despite a growing body of literature focused on racial/ethnic disparities in Covid-19 mortality, few previous studies have examined the pandemic's impact on 2020 cause-specific mortality by race and ethnicity. This paper documents changes in mortality by underlying cause of death and race/ethnicity between 2019 and 2020. Using age-standardized death rates, we attribute changes for Black, Hispanic, and White populations to various underlying cause…
The Changing Age Distribution of the United States
The age distribution of a population is a product of a century of demographic history. This paper describes how the history of births, deaths, and migrations has fashioned the US age distribution in 2018. It also shows how that history, combined with contemporary processes, was actively producing changes in the age distribution between 2013 and 2018. Changes in survivorship, migration, and births all contributed to population aging during this pe…
Increases in BMI and chronic pain for US adults in midlife, 1992 to 2016
Recent unprecedented increases in mortality and morbidity during midlife are often ascribed to rising despair in the US population. An alternative and less often examined explanation is that these trends reflect, at least in part, the lagged effects of the obesity epidemic. Adults in midlife today are more likely to live with obesity and have a greater cumulative exposure to excess adiposity during their lifetime than any previous generation. Pri…
Ecological factors associated with suicide mortality among non-Hispanic whites
Socioeconomic characteristic and access to lethal means explain much of the variation in suicide mortality rates across commuting zones, but do not account for the pervasive national-level increase in suicide mortality between 1999 and 2017
Life Beyond 65
Even at advanced ages, large geographic disparities in life expectancy remain. And as mortality has declined, these disparities have widened. Public health efforts should pay special attention to identifying and ameliorating the sources of lagging life expectancy in nonmetropolitan regions
My Life in Words and Numbers
George Orwell reportedly said that 'Autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful.' I've done my best to eliminate any disgraceful episodes from the following account, thereby compromising its trustworthiness. What's left is a record of someone lucky enough to ( a) find a career as a demographer that was ideally suited to his affinity for writing and math and ( b) find institutions and individuals who vigorously and un…
Rising geographic inequality in mortality in the United States
Spatial inequality in life expectancy at birth and adult mortality has increased in recent decades
Trends in Non-Hispanic White Mortality in the United States by Metropolitan-Nonmetropolitan Status and Region, 1990-2016
The first decades of the twenty-first century have been a challenging period for American mortality. Life expectancy in the United States ranked 30th in the world in 2010 and is much lower than in other high-income countries (World Health Organization 2017). Between 2010 and 2016, US life expectancy fell further behind other developed countries, increasing by only 0.08 years, the smallest 5-year increase since 1970 (Ho and Hendi 2018). These rela…
Effect of diabetes on life expectancy in the United States by race and ethnicity
We investigated the impact of diabetes on US life expectancy by sex and race/ethnicity using a prospective cohort study design. Cohorts were drawn from 1997-2009 waves of the National Health Interview Survey and linked to death records through December 31, 2011. We combined data on the prevalence of diabetes among decedents with estimates of the hazard ratios of individuals diagnosed with diabetes to calculate population attributable fractions (P…
The Contribution of Weight Status to Black-White Differences in Mortality
This article examines the contribution of weight status to black-white (B-W) differences in mortality at ages 40-79 using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. We measured body mass index (BMI) based on the highest BMI attained and contrasted the contribution of BMI to that of smoking and educational attainment. We estimated both additive and multiplicative models. In addition to estimating regression coefficients we ask…
Are major behavioral and sociodemographic risk factors for mortality additive or multiplicative in their effects
The contribution of a history of heavy smoking to Scotland's mortality disadvantage
Scotland has a lower life expectancy than any country in Western Europe or North America, and this disadvantage is concentrated above age 50. According to the Human Mortality Database, life expectancy at age 50 has been lower in Scotland than in any other developed country since 1980. Relative to 15 developed countries that we have chosen for comparison, Scotland's life expectancy in 2009 at age 50 was lower by an average of 2.5 years for women a…
How Dangerous Is Obesity? Issues in Measurement and Interpretation
Limits to Human Longevity
Longevity has increased sharply in the past century and it is likely to continue increasing. Historical trends in maximum life expectancy at birth show major improvements since 1760. Life expectancy at age 80 has also improved with an accelerating pace in recent years suggesting we are not approaching a biological limit to the length of life. Anticipating the near future of longevity typically relies on extrapolating either longevity itself or ag…
Projecting the Effect of Changes in Smoking and Obesity on Future Life Expectancy in the United States
We estimate the effects of declining smoking and increasing obesity on mortality in the United States over the period 2010–2040. Data on cohort behavioral histories are integrated into these estimates. Future distributions of body mass indices are projected using transition matrices applied to the initial distribution in 2010. In addition to projections of current obesity, we project distributions of obesity when cohorts are age 25. To these dist…
Factors responsible for mortality variation in the United States
BACKGROUND: Factors including smoking, drinking, substance abuse, obesity, and health care have all been shown to affect health and longevity. The relative importance of each of these factors is disputed in the literature, and has been assessed through a number of methods. OBJECTIVE: This paper uses a novel approach to identify factors responsible for interstate mortality variation. It identifies factors through their imprint on mortality pattern…
Anatomy of a Municipal Triumph
Over the period 1990-2010, the increase in life expectancy for males in New York City was 6.0 years greater than for males in the United States. The female relative gain was 3.9 years. Male relative gains were larger because of extremely rapid reductions in mortality from HIV/AIDS and homicide, declines that reflect effective municipal policies and programs. Declines in drug- and alcohol-related deaths also played a significant role in New York C…
The changing contribution of smoking to educational differences in life expectancy
BACKGROUND: We estimated the contribution of smoking to educational differences in mortality and life expectancy between 1971 and 2010 in Finland. METHODS: Eight prospective datasets with baseline in 1970, 1975, 1980, 1985, 1990, 1995, 2000 and 2005 and each linked to a 5-year mortality follow-up were used. We calculated life expectancy at age 50 years with and without smoking-attributable mortality by education and gender. Estimates of smoking-a…
Anatomy of a Municipal Triumph
Over the period 1990–2010, the increase in life expectancy for males in New York City was 6.0 years greater than for males in the United States. The female relative gain was 3.9 years. Male relative gains were larger because of extremely rapid reductions in mortality from HIV/AIDS and homicide, declines that reflect effective municipal policies and programs. Declines in drug- and alcohol-related deaths also played a significant role in New York C…
Population Change among the Elderly
Continued Increases in the Relative Risk of Death From Smoking
Objectives. We examined changes in the relative risk of death among current and former smokers over recent decades in the United States. Methods. Data from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) and National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) were linked to subsequent deaths. We calculated age-standardized death rates by gender and smoking status, and estimated multivariate discrete time logit regression models. Results. The ri…
Educational differentials in mortality
The paper examines educational differentials in adult mortality in the United States within a multivariate framework using data from the National Longitudinal Mortality Survey (NLMS). As a preliminary step we compare the magnitude of educational mortality differentials in the United States to those documented in Europe. At ages 35-54, the proportionate reductions in mortality for each one year increase in schooling are similar in the United State…
Demography, Measuring and Modeling Population Processes
The Changing Relation between Mortality and level of Economic Development
A very simple technique has been used to shed light on a number of questions about the influence of economic level on national mortality trends and differentials. Scatter-diagrams of the cross-sectional relation between national income per head and life expectancy are developed for three decades during the twentieth, century. The relations established appear to shift systematically during the century. In general, in order to attain a certain life…
Childhood conditions that predict survival to advanced ages among African-Americans
This paper investigates the social and economic circumstances of childhood that predict the probability of survival to age 85 among African-Americans. It uses a unique study design in which survivors are linked to their records in U.S. Censuses of 1900 and 1910. A control group of age and race-matched children is drawn from Public Use Samples for these censuses. It concludes that the factors most predictive of survival are farm background, having…
Children and the elderly
Let me summarize briefly. My argument is that we have made a set of private and public choices that have dramatically altered the age profile of well-being. These choices are in an important sense joint ones involving the number of dependents we have as well as the conditions in which they live. This jointness derives from several sources. One is that the same institution--the conjugal family--remains the principal agent responsible for both chil…
Changes in American Marriage, 1972 to 1987
Les AA. etudient les changements concernant la propension au mariage selon l'âge et le niveau d'etudes des epouses potentielles. Les donnees relatives a la baisse du taux de mariage mettent en evidence l'importance de l'âge au mariage, en particulier chez les femmes jeunes
Sex mortality differences in The United States
This article demonstrates that over the period 1948–2003, sex differences in mortality in the age range 50–84 widened and then narrowed on a cohort basis rather than on a period basis. The cohort with the maximum excess of male mortality was born shortly after the turn of the century. Three separate data sources suggest that the turnaround in sex mortality differences is consistent with sex differences in cigarette smoking by cohort. An age-perio…
Are Educational Differentials in Adult Mortality Increasing in the United States
Two recent studies have compared the size of educational mortality differentials among adults in the 1980s to estimates for 1960. Both studies have concluded that educational differentials have increased for males. One study finds a similar increase for females. We reconsider this question by introducing a data source that is better suited to estimating recent differentials than either of the two that have been employed. We also evaluate the qual…
Effects of Family Composition on Mortality Differentials by Sex Among Children in Matlab, Bangladesh
Pradip K. Muhuri, Samuel H. Preston, Effects of Family Composition on Mortality Differentials by Sex Among Children in Matlab, Bangladesh, Population and Development Review, Vol. 17, No. 3 (Sep., 1991), pp. 415-434
Family sizes of children and family sizes of women
This paper demonstrates the relation that obtains between the average family size of women and the average family size of offspring of those women. It estimates the value of these two measures for cohorts of American women aged 45–49 in various years from 1890 to 1970. It shows that children born during the post-war baby boom actually derived from smaller families than those born during the low-fertility 1930’s; that under current patterns a woma…
African-american mortality at older ages
In this paper we investigate the quality of age reporting on death certificates of elderly African-Americans. We link a sample of death certificates of persons age 65+ in 1985 to records for the same individuals in U.S. censuses of 1900, 1910, and 1920 and to records of the Social Security Administration. The ages at death reported on death certificates are too young on average. Errors are greater for women than for men. Despite systematic underr…
The incidence of divorce within cohorts of American marriages contracted since the civil war
The proportion of marriages that end in divorce can be estimated from vital registration or from census data. The former source suggests considerably higher levels of divorce than does the latter. A new series, combining the two sources, is presented for annual marriage cohorts back to 1867. Actual experience to 1970 is traced and a projection beyond that point is made for cohorts with incomplete divorce histories. The cohort divorce series moves…
The influence of women’s work opportunities on marriage rates
Several authors have argued that increased work opportunities for women have helped to produce a reduction in the average age at marriage in the United States. This paper tests this proposition on data for the 100 largest SMSA’s in 1960. Using ordinary least-squares regression, we find that areas of relatively attractive female employment opportunities had relatively low proportions of women ever married in the age interval 22–24. Other variables…
Racial Differences in Household and Family Structure at the Turn of the Century
Using recently available data drawn from the 1910 census manuscripts, this article documents sharp racial differences in family and household structure at the turn of the century. Compared with those of native whites, African-American households were less likely to be nuclear and more likely to be headed by women. Further, African-American women were much more likely than white women to have surviving children who were not living with them at the…
Effects of age misreporting on mortality estimates at older ages
This study examines how age misreporting typically affects estimates of mortality at older ages. We investigate the effects of three patterns of age misreporting & age overstatement, age understatement, and symmetric age misreporting & on mortality estimates at ages 40 and above. We consider five methods to estimate mortality: conventional estimates derived from vital statistics and censuses; longitudinal studies where age is identified at baseli…
Urban French mortality in the nineteenth century
Following population reconstructions, age-specific death rates and life tables are computed for five-year periods during 1816-1905 for the three largest urban départements of France. During the early decades of the period, life expectancy at birth in the urban départements is about five to ten years lower than that of France as a whole. At some point after the mid-century, the gap in each of the three is reduced. However, the timing of accelerate…
Estimating African-American Mortality from Inaccurate Data
This paper evaluates the quality of vital statistics and census data for estimating African-American mortality over a period of six decades. The authors employ intercensal cohort comparisons and extinct generation estimates to demonstrate that conventionally constructed African-American death rates may be seriously flawed as early as age 50. Using the crude death rate at ages 50+ for 1978-1982 in conjunction with estimated growth rates and two mo…
Demographic Conditions Responsible for Population Aging
This article develops and applies two expressions for the rate of change of a population's mean age. In one, aging is shown to be negatively related to contemporary birth rates and death rates. In a general sense, aging occurs when vital rates are too low, as illustrated through applications to the United States, the Netherlands, and Japan. The other expression relates the rate of aging to a population's demographic history, in particular to chan…
Urban Growth in Developing Countries
In view of the importance being attached to population distribution issues particularly to urban growth it is useful to examine carefully the demographic processes that are currently responsible for and associated with such growth. The rate of change in the proportion urban in developing countries is not exceptionally rapid by historical standards; rather it is the growth rates of urban populations that represent an unprecedented phenomenon. Amon…
US Mortality in an International Context
Compared to other developed countries, the United States ranks poorly in terms of life expectancy at age 50. We seek to shed light on the US's low life expectancy ranking by comparing the age‐specific death rates of 18 developed countries at older ages. A striking pattern emerges: between ages 40 and 75, US all‐cause mortality rates are among the poorest in the set of comparison countries. The US position improves dramatically after age 75 for bo…
African-American marriage in 1910
This paper examines the quality of information about marital status, marital duration, and marriage order among African-American women in the U.S. Census of 1910. It compares the reported prevalence of widowhood to estimates of widowhood based on the mortality of black men and on the ages of women at first marriage. It also compares the reported distributions of duration of first marriage to estimates based on mortality and on age at first marria…
Mortality, The Family and the Indian Ocean Tsunami
Over 130,000 people died in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The correlates of survival are examined using data from the Study of the Tsunami Aftermath and Recovery (STAR), a population-representative survey collected in Aceh and North Sumatra, Indonesia, before and after the tsunami. Children, older adults and females were the least likely to survive. Whereas socio-economic factors mattered relatively little, the evidence is consistent with physic…
World Development Report 1993
This is the sixteenth in the annual series and examines the interplay between human health, health policy and economic development. Because good health increases the economic productivity of individuals and the economic growth rate of countries, investing in health is one means of accelerating development. More important, good health is a goal in itself. During the past forty years life expectancy in the developing world has risen and child morta…
Estimating Smoking-Attributable Mortality in the United States
Tobacco use is the largest single cause of premature death in the developed world. Two methods of estimating the number of deaths attributable to smoking use mortality from lung cancer as an indicator of the damage from smoking. We reestimate the coefficients of one of these, the Preston/Glei/Wilmoth model, using recent data from U.S. states. We calculate smoking-attributable fractions for the 50 states and the United States as a whole in 2004, a…
Trends in Non-Hispanic White Mortality in the United States by Metropolitan-Nonmetropolitan Status and Region, 1990-2016
The first decades of the twenty-first century have been a challenging period for American mortality. Life expectancy in the United States ranked 30th in the world in 2010 and is much lower than in other high-income countries (World Health Organization 2017). Between 2010 and 2016, US life expectancy fell further behind other developed countries, increasing by only 0.08 years, the smallest 5-year increase since 1970 (Ho and Hendi 2018). These rela…
Mortality differentials by social class and smoking habit
Empirical analysis of the contribution of age composition to population growth
The method of decomposition is applied to rates of natural increase in order to elucidate the role played by age composition in the growth of populations. A population’s age distribution and fertility schedule are contrasted to those in a "stationary" population having the same mortality rates and having a fertility schedule equal to that of the observed population divided by its net reproduction rate. In this manner it is shown that about one-qu…
An international comparison of excessive adult mortality
Empirical expressions derived by Coale and Demeny accurately characterized the relationships among death rates of different age groups for each sex during an extended period of time in Western nations. However, the relationships have changed in recent years, as the mortality of older persons has increasingly exceeded the level expected on the basis of these expressions. The recent disruption is relatively small for females and may be due to very …
Older Male Mortality and Cigarette Smoking
Older Male Mortality and Cigarette Smoking. A Demographic Analysis
Effect of Mortality Change on Stable Population Parameters
The stable population model is used to establish formulas expressing the effects of mortality change on population growth rates, birth rates, and age composition. The change in the intrinsic growth rate is shown to be quite accurately approximated by the average decline in age-specific death rates between age zero and the mean age at childbearing in the stable population. This change is essentially independent of the initial level of fertility in…
Demographic and social consequences of various causes of death in the United States
Differential Fertility, Unwanted Fertility, and Racial Trends in Occupational Achievement
The effects of maintaining current class differences in fertility on future occupational achievement and mobility levels are estimated for all white and nonwhite 25-64 year old men in the labor force at the time of the 1962 Current Population Survey. The results indicate that the differential reproductivity for occupational distributions is more influential among the nonwhite population in the U.S. However if no class differences in fertility exi…
Structure and change in causes of death
Model patterns of the cause structure of mortality at different levels were established for males and females, based on data for 165 national populations. These patterns suggest that the cause of death most responsible for mortality variation is influenza/bronchitis, followed by 'other infectious and parasitic diseases', respiratory tuberculosis, and diarrhoeal disease. Together, these causes typically account for about 60 per cent of the change …
Mortalité de l'enfance au XIXe siècle à Paris et dans le département de la Seine
ha mortalité de la première année, dite mortalité infantile, est un des tests les plus significatifs du développement, dans une société en transition. Sa mesure ne présente aucune difficulté pour une population fermée, dont les statistiques d'état civil sont bien établies. En France et à Paris, des statistiques existent pour le XIXe siècle, mais leur exactitude est souvent contestée, en particulier pour les villes, en raison des migrations et, pl…
America's Uncounted People
The influence of women’s work opportunities on marriage rates
Several authors have argued that increased work opportunities for women have helped to produce a reduction in the average age at marriage in the United States. This paper tests this proposition on data for the 100 largest SMSA’s in 1960. Using ordinary least-squares regression, we find that areas of relatively attractive female employment opportunities had relatively low proportions of women ever married in the age interval 22–24. Other variables…
The Changing Relation between Mortality and level of Economic Development
A very simple technique has been used to shed light on a number of questions about the influence of economic level on national mortality trends and differentials. Scatter-diagrams of the cross-sectional relation between national income per head and life expectancy are developed for three decades during the twentieth, century. The relations established appear to shift systematically during the century. In general, in order to attain a certain life…
Health Programs and Population Growth
It has become conventional demographic wisdom that the level of mortality in a population has a substantial positive influence on its level of fertility. Evidence in support of this proposed relationship has been flawed and recent studies of reproductive-age couples suggest that the influence is probably much weaker than previously supposed. The childbearing of individual couples in developing countries is not highly responsive to child deaths th…
Estimating the Proportion of American Marriages That End in Divorce
This paper reviews and develops techniques of estimating the proportion of marriages that end in divorce which are based on disruption rates observed during a particular period of time. A source of bias in commonly used indirect estimation procedures is identified and methods of adjusting for the bias are developed. Application of the new techniques to American data of 1973 suggests that 44% of marriages would end in divorce under disruption rate…
Family sizes of children and family sizes of women
This paper demonstrates the relation that obtains between the average family size of women and the average family size of offspring of those women. It estimates the value of these two measures for cohorts of American women aged 45–49 in various years from 1890 to 1970. It shows that children born during the post-war baby boom actually derived from smaller families than those born during the low-fertility 1930’s; that under current patterns a woma…
Beyond Economic Man
Mortality Patterns in National Populations
Mortality Patterns in National Populations. With Special Reference to Recorded Causes of Death
Mortality Trends
Urban French mortality in the nineteenth century
Following population reconstructions, age-specific death rates and life tables are computed for five-year periods during 1816-1905 for the three largest urban départements of France. During the early decades of the period, life expectancy at birth in the urban départements is about five to ten years lower than that of France as a whole. At some point after the mid-century, the gap in each of the three is reduced. However, the timing of accelerate…
The incidence of divorce within cohorts of American marriages contracted since the civil war
The proportion of marriages that end in divorce can be estimated from vital registration or from census data. The former source suggests considerably higher levels of divorce than does the latter. A new series, combining the two sources, is presented for annual marriage cohorts back to 1867. Actual experience to 1970 is traced and a projection beyond that point is made for cohorts with incomplete divorce histories. The cohort divorce series moves…
Urban Growth in Developing Countries
In view of the importance being attached to population distribution issues particularly to urban growth it is useful to examine carefully the demographic processes that are currently responsible for and associated with such growth. The rate of change in the proportion urban in developing countries is not exceptionally rapid by historical standards; rather it is the growth rates of urban populations that represent an unprecedented phenomenon. Amon…
Estimating the completeness of death registration
Death registration statistics, even when incomplete, can provide valuable information about mortality. In particular, the age structure of deaths can be used to estimate the completeness of registration, provided that this completeness does not vary substantially with age. Two methods of estimating the completeness of death registration from the distribution of deaths by age are described. The first is derived from stable population theory and re…
India
Demography (105 works) · Sociology (86 works) · Population (74 works) · Demography (55 works) · Geography (52 works) · Insurance, Mortality, Demography, Risk Management (52 works) · Medicine (52 works) · Global Health Care Issues (39 works) · Health disparities and outcomes (39 works) · Economics (38 works)