A Zajacova
Biographic Data
| ID | 15976 |
|---|---|
| NAME | A Zajacova |
| GIVEN NAMES | A |
| FAMILY NAME | Zajacova |
| SIGNATURE | ZAJACOVA A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Western University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3880-6187 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 93 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 715 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 67 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 26 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 14 |
Changes in the Education-Health Gradient Within U.S. States, 1993–2019
The association between educational attainment and health (i.e., the education-health gradient) among U.S. adults has strengthened in recent decades; however, explanations for this trend are incomplete. This study builds on recent work showing that the strength of the gradient differs across U.S. states. We asked, how and why has the gradient changed over time in each U.S. state? Using 27 years of cross-sectional data from the 1993–2019 Behaviora…
Educational Disparities in Disability in Mid- to Late-Life: How Much is Attributable to Pain
BackgroundEducational disparities in disability are substantial, but the contribution of pain remains underexplored.Research DesignUsing 2002-2018 National Health Interview Survey data, we examined the role of site-specific pain-joint, low back, neck, headache/migraine, and facial/jaw-in educational disparities in physical, cognitive, work, and social limitations, as well as activities of daily living (ADLs) and instrumental ADLs (IADLs). Karlson…
Educational Attainment and Cardiovascular Disease Symptoms among Americans Entering Mid-Adulthood
Although the education-health gradient is well documented, relatively little is known about its application to cardiovascular disease (CVD), the leading cause of mortality in the United States. Furthermore, critical nuances across educational levels and demographic subgroups remain underexplored. The authors examine the association between education and CVD among U.S. adults entering mid-adulthood, leveraging a novel symptom-based CVD index captu…
Where Does It Hurt? A 4-S Model of Pain Onset and Recovery Across Body Sites Among Older Adults
Objectives Pain is an increasingly widespread problem for older adults, contributing to higher health care costs and lower quality of life. Though the prevalence of pain is well documented in national studies, less is known about where pain occurs in the body, and even less about the dynamic processes of onset and recovery. We examine the bodily distribution of pain and its covariates and propose a framework to systematize how pain sites remain s…
Chronic pain prevalence and trends in urban, suburban, and rural areas amongAmerican adults aged 55+, 1998-2022
Pain Lowers Subjective Survival Probabilities Among Middle-Aged and Older Adults
These findings highlight the importance of pain on SSPs, and contribute to the growing evidence that pain interference is uniquely important in predicting meaningful health outcomes
Does Pain Explain Trends in Disability? An Analysis of Middle-Aged and Older U.S. Adults, 2002–2018
Our research provides the first systematic, national examination of how pain is contributing to disability trends in the United States. The findings have implications for disability reduction policies and shed light on the far-reaching consequences of pain for overall population health
Transition Into the Caregiver Role Among Older Adults: A Study of Social Participation and Social Support Based on the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging
This study adds to the relatively limited knowledge of older caregivers by presenting the changes in social participation and social support after transitioning into 3 types of caregiver roles. The results indicate the need to provide support for caregivers, particularly spousal and nonkin caregivers, to help them maintain social relationships and networks for participation and support
Implications of Cumulative Life Event Stress for Daily Stress Exposure and Cardiovascular Reactivity Among Black and White Americans
Individuals who experience more life events across the adult life course report greater daily stress exposure which has important implications for daily cardiovascular health. Black individuals with moderate-increasing life event stress show evidence of blunted daily stress reactivity (nonsignificant association between daily stress and heart rate) whereas Black individuals with low-decreasing life event stress show evidence of stress reactivity …
Does the Economic Status of Adult Children Influence Self-Rated Health Among Older Adults in China
The results from this study suggest that children's economic success contributes to better self-rated health among older adults. In part, this relationship was explained by better emotional well-being and greater availability of support resources among parents in rural areas with successful children. This quasi-causal analysis demonstrates that adult children remain important for the well-being of their older parents in China, but also suggests t…
Social Isolation and Worsening Health Behaviors Among Older Adults During the Covid-19 Pandemic
Our study suggests that in-person contact may play a distinct role in shaping older adults' well-being during the pandemic
Educational Disparities in Hypertension Prevalence and Blood Pressure Percentiles in the Health and Retirement Study
Among older U.S. adults, the distribution of BP is compressed at lower, healthier levels for those with more education, and skewed toward the highest, most harmful levels among those with less education. Educational inequities in hypertension awareness and treatment efficacy may underlie these patterns. Implications for fundamental cause theory are discussed
Childhood Stressors, Relationship Quality, and Cognitive Health in Later Life
Findings reveal that a stressful childhood creates chains of risks that have lifelong implications for cognitive health, both directly and indirectly by creating obstacles for developing healthy and supportive social relationships
Gender Differences in Depressive Symptoms Following Child Death in Later Life
Mothers more often experience child death in later life and their adjustment process differs from that of fathers, underscoring the salience of gender in shaping how older parents respond to the death of a child. Older parents and mothers without surviving children are vulnerable to prolonged elevations in depressive symptoms following the death of a child in later life
Racial Differences in the Dementia Caregiving Experience During the Covid-19 Pandemic: Findings From the National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS)
This study highlights that increased caregiving demands during the pandemic amplified racial differences in CG stress. Findings suggest that outreach to reduce CG stress and burden is critical for Black dementia CGs
Inequalities in Retirement Life Span in the United States
Our multistate approach provides an accurate and comprehensive picture of the retirement life span of older Americans over the past two decades. Such findings should be considered in high-level discussions on Social Security. Potential reforms such as raising the eligibility age or cutting benefits may have unexpected implications for different social groups due to their differential effects on retirement initiation and reentry dynamics
Educational Differences in Life Expectancies With and Without Pain
Education promotes longer life and more pain-free years, but the specific degree of improvement by education varies across demographic groups. More research is needed to explain associations between education and more and less severe and limiting aspects of pain
Cohort Trends in the Burden of Multiple Chronic Conditions Among Aging U.S. Adults
Our results suggest increasing multimorbidity burden among more recently born cohorts of aging U.S. adults and should inform policy to address diminishing health in aging populations
Prevalence of Loneliness and Its Association With General and Health-Related Measures of Subjective Well-Being in a Longitudinal Bicultural Cohort of Older Adults in Advanced Age Living in New Zealand…
Our findings of adverse impacts on subjective well-being corroborate other evidence, highlighting loneliness as a prime candidate for intervention-appropriate to cultural context-to improve well-being for adults in advanced age
Global Pain and Aging: A Cross-Sectional Study on Age Differences in the Intensity of Chronic Pain Among Middle-Aged and Older Adults in 20 Countries
Chronic pain intensity is not an inevitable consequence of chronological age, but the consequence of potential selection effects and lower activity levels combined with individual-level health and country-level wealth. Our findings suggest further investigation of health conditions and country affluence settings as potential targets of medical and policy interventions aiming to prevent, reduce, or manage chronic pain among older patients and agin…
Why Are Old-Age Disabilities Decreasing in Sweden and Denmark? Evidence on the Contribution of Cognition, Education, and Sensory Functions
These findings raise important questions about the causal mechanisms producing the associations between cognition, education, and sensory functions and disability in older age. Future studies should explore the causal nature of the associations between these mediators and old-age disabilities. In addition, they should explore whether these findings differ across regional and cultural contexts and over different time periods
State-Level Variation in the Association Between Educational Attainment and Sleep
Race Inequity in School Attendance Across the Jim Crow South and Its Implications for Black–White Disparities in Trajectories of Cognitive Function Among Older Adults
Our study highlights the importance of using a more refined measure of schooling for understanding the education-cognitive health relationship
A comparison of health and socioeconomic gradients in health between the United States and Canada
Studying the social determinants of Covid‐19 in a data vacuum
Race-based and other demographic information on COVID-19 patients is not being collected consistently across provinces in Canada. Therefore, whether the burden of COVID-19 is falling disproportionately on the shoulders of particular demographic groups is relatively unknown. In this article, we first provide an overview of the available geographic and demographic data related to COVID-19. We then make creative use of these existing data to fill th…
Self-Efficacy, Stress, and Academic Success in College
Educational Disparities in Adult Mortality Across U.S. States: How Do They Differ, and Have They Changed Since the Mid-1980s
Adult mortality varies greatly by educational attainment. Explanations have focused on actions and choices made by individuals, neglecting contextual factors such as economic and policy environments. This study takes an important step toward explaining educational disparities in U.S. adult mortality and their growth since the mid-1980s by examining them across U.S. states. We analyzed data on adults aged 45–89 in the 1985–2011 National Health Int…
Educational Disparities in Adult Health: U.S. States as Institutional Actors on the Association
Despite numerous studies on educational disparities in U.S. adult health, explanations for the disparities and their growth over time remain incomplete. The authors argue that this knowledge gap partly reflects an individualist paradigm in U.S. studies of educational disparities in health. These studies have focused largely on proximal explanations (e.g., individual behaviors) to the neglect of contextual explanations (e.g., economic policies). T…
Gender and the structure of self-rated health across the adult life span
Trends in Mortality Risk by Education Level and Cause of Death Among US White Women From 1986 to 2006
Objectives. To elucidate why the inverse association between education level and mortality risk (the gradient) has increased markedly among White women since the mid-1980s, we identified causes of death for which the gradient increased. Methods. We used data from the 1986 to 2006 National Health Interview Survey Linked Mortality File on non-Hispanic White women aged 45 to 84 years (n = 230 692). We examined trends in the gradient by cause of deat…
Gender differences in education effects on all-cause mortality for white and black adults in the United States
Education, gender, and mortality: Does schooling have the same effect on mortality for men and women in the US
Educational Degrees and Adult Mortality Risk in the United States
We present the first published estimates of U.S. adult mortality risk by detailed educational degree, including advanced postsecondary degrees. We use the 1997-2002 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) Linked Mortality Files and Cox proportional hazards models to reveal wide graded differences in mortality by educational degree. Compared to adults who have a professional degree, those with an MA are 5 percent, those with a BA are 26 percent, t…
Early origins of health disparities: Burden of infection, health, and socioeconomic status in U.S. children
Why Is Life Expectancy Declining Among Low-Educated Women in the United States
AffiliationsJennifer Karas Montez is with the Department of Sociology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH. Anna Zajacova is with the Department of Sociology, University of Wyoming
Explaining the Widening Education Gap in Mortality among U.S. White Women
Over the past half century the gap in mortality across education levels has grown in the United States, and since the mid-1980s, the growth has been especially pronounced among white women. The reasons for the growth among white women are unclear. We investigated three explanations—social-psychological factors, economic circumstances, and health behaviors—for the widening education gap in mortality from 1997 to 2006 among white women aged 45 to 8…
Pain Trends Among American Adults, 2002–2018: Patterns, Disparities, and Correlates
Determining long-term trends in chronic pain prevalence is critical for evaluating and shaping U.S. health policies, but little research has examined such trends. This study (1) provides estimates of pain trends among U.S. adults across major population groups; (2) tests whether sociodemographic disparities in pain have widened or narrowed over time; and (3) examines socioeconomic, behavioral, psychological, and medical correlates of pain trends.…
Disparities in Disability by Educational Attainment Across US States
Objectives. To examine how disparities in adult disability by educational attainment vary across US states. Methods. We used the nationally representative data of more than 6 million adults aged 45 to 89 years in the 2010–2014 American Community Survey. We defined disability as difficulty with activities of daily living. We categorized education as low (less than high school), mid (high school or some college), or high (bachelor’s or higher). We …
Glitch in the gradient: Additional education does not uniformly equal better health
Trends in U.S. Population Health: The Central Role of Policies, Politics, and Profits
Recent trends in U.S. health have been mixed, with improvements among some groups and geographic areas alongside declines among others. Medical sociologists have contributed to the understanding of those disparate trends, although important questions remain. In this article, we review trends since the 1980s in key indicators of U.S. health and weigh evidence from the last decade on their causes. To better understand contemporary trends in health,…
Sociology of Chronic Pain
Chronic pain is a common, costly, and consequential health problem. However, despite some important analytic contributions, sociological research on pain has not yet coalesced into a unified subfield. We present three interrelated bodies of evidence and illustrative new empirical findings using 2010 to 2018 National Health Interview Survey data to argue that pain should have a central role in sociological investigations of health. Specifically, w…
Persistent, Consistent, and Extensive: The Trend of Increasing Pain Prevalence in Older Americans
The increases in pain prevalence among older Americans are alarming and potentially of epidemic proportions. Population-health research must monitor and understand these worrisome trends
Health in Working-Aged Americans: Adults With High School Equivalency Diploma Are Similar to Dropouts, Not High School Graduates
Objectives. We compared health outcomes for adults with the General Equivalency Diploma (GED) and regular high school diploma to determine whether GED recipients are equivalent to regular graduates despite research that documents their disadvantages in other outcomes. Methods. We used 1997 to 2009 National Health Interview Survey cross-sectional data on high school dropouts, graduates, and GED recipients aged 30 to 65 years (n = 76 705). Five gen…
Explaining the increasing disability prevalence among mid-life US adults, 2002 to 2016
The Nonequivalent Health of High School Equivalents
OBJECTIVES: (GED) diploma. Virtually nothing is known about the health of this large group, although literature suggests GED recipients are considerably worse off than high school graduates in numerous economic and social outcomes. We analyze general health among working-age adults with a high school diploma, GED recipients, and high school dropouts. METHODS: Ordered and binary logistic models of self-rated health and activity limitations were es…
Education and Health among U.S. Working-Age Adults: A Detailed Portrait across the Full Educational Attainment Spectrum
This article presents detailed estimates of relative and absolute health inequalities among U.S. working-age adults by educational attainment, including six postsecondary schooling levels. We also estimate the impact of several sets of mediating variables on the education-health gradient. Data from the 1997-2009 National Health Interview Survey (N = 178,103) show remarkable health differentials. For example, high school graduates have 3.5 times t…
Race Inequity in School Attendance Across the Jim Crow South and Its Implications for Black–White Disparities in Trajectories of Cognitive Function Among Older Adults
Our study highlights the importance of using a more refined measure of schooling for understanding the education-cognitive health relationship
Cohort Trends in the Burden of Multiple Chronic Conditions Among Aging U.S. Adults
Our results suggest increasing multimorbidity burden among more recently born cohorts of aging U.S. adults and should inform policy to address diminishing health in aging populations
Physical Disability and Older Adults’ Perceived Food and Economic Insecurity During the Covid-19 Pandemic
Older adults with more functional limitations were vulnerable to economic and food insecurity during the pandemic, potentially exacerbating the physical and emotional health threats imposed by COVID-19. Supports for older adults with disability should focus on logistical as well as financial support for ensuring their food security
Socioeconomic Disparities in Health Among Older Adults and the Implications for the Retirement Age Debate: A Brief Report
Our findings revealed enormous health inequalities in self-reported health, using a powerful and intuitive age-equivalence formulation. They highlighted the importance of considering health disparities in discussions about raising the retirement age, both in terms of fairness and feasibility
Self-Efficacy, Stress, and Academic Success in College
Education, gender, and mortality: Does schooling have the same effect on mortality for men and women in the US
Does the predictive power of self-rated health for subsequent mortality risk vary by socioeconomic status in the US?
BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study is to test whether the predictive power of an individual's self-rated health (SRH) on subsequent mortality risk differs by socioeconomic status (SES) in the United States. METHODS: We use the National Health Interview Survey 1986-94 linked to Multiple Cause of Death Files 1986-97 (NHIS-MCD). Analyses are based on non-Hispanic Black and White adults 25 and older (n = 358,388). Cox proportional hazard models ar…
Early origins of health disparities: Burden of infection, health, and socioeconomic status in U.S. children
Gender differences in education effects on all-cause mortality for white and black adults in the United States
Does Self-Rated Health Mean the Same Thing Across Socioeconomic Groups? Evidence From Biomarker Data
Educational Degrees and Adult Mortality Risk in the United States
We present the first published estimates of U.S. adult mortality risk by detailed educational degree, including advanced postsecondary degrees. We use the 1997-2002 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) Linked Mortality Files and Cox proportional hazards models to reveal wide graded differences in mortality by educational degree. Compared to adults who have a professional degree, those with an MA are 5 percent, those with a BA are 26 percent, t…
Body Weight and Health from Early to Mid-Adulthood: A Longitudinal Analysis
We analyze the influence of body weight in early adulthood, and changes in weight over time, on self-rated health as people age into middle adulthood. While prior research has focused on cross-sectional samples of older adults, we use longitudinal data from the NHANES I Epidemiologic Follow-up Study and double-trajectory latent growth models to study the association between body mass index (BMI) and self-rated health trajectories over 20 years. R…
Reliability of Self-rated Health in US Adults
General self-rated health (SRH) is widely used to study trends and inequalities in population health. Recently, there has been an increased interest in understanding the measurement properties of SRH. This study evaluated for the first time the test-retest reliability of SRH among US adults. Analyses were based on a nationally representative sample of 9,235 adults interviewed in the 2005-2008 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHAN…
Shape of the BMI-Mortality Association by Cause of Death, Using Generalized Additive Models: Nhis 1986–2006
Our findings have implications for interpreting results from BMI-mortality studies and suggest caution in translating the findings into public health messages
Education and Health among U.S. Working-Age Adults: A Detailed Portrait across the Full Educational Attainment Spectrum
This article presents detailed estimates of relative and absolute health inequalities among U.S. working-age adults by educational attainment, including six postsecondary schooling levels. We also estimate the impact of several sets of mediating variables on the education-health gradient. Data from the 1997-2009 National Health Interview Survey (N = 178,103) show remarkable health differentials. For example, high school graduates have 3.5 times t…
Health in Working-Aged Americans: Adults With High School Equivalency Diploma Are Similar to Dropouts, Not High School Graduates
Objectives. We compared health outcomes for adults with the General Equivalency Diploma (GED) and regular high school diploma to determine whether GED recipients are equivalent to regular graduates despite research that documents their disadvantages in other outcomes. Methods. We used 1997 to 2009 National Health Interview Survey cross-sectional data on high school dropouts, graduates, and GED recipients aged 30 to 65 years (n = 76 705). Five gen…
Glitch in the gradient: Additional education does not uniformly equal better health
Healthier, Wealthier, and Wiser: A Demonstration of Compositional Changes in Aging Cohorts Due to Selective Mortality
Trends in Mortality Risk by Education Level and Cause of Death Among US White Women From 1986 to 2006
Objectives. To elucidate why the inverse association between education level and mortality risk (the gradient) has increased markedly among White women since the mid-1980s, we identified causes of death for which the gradient increased. Methods. We used data from the 1986 to 2006 National Health Interview Survey Linked Mortality File on non-Hispanic White women aged 45 to 84 years (n = 230 692). We examined trends in the gradient by cause of deat…
Explaining the Widening Education Gap in Mortality among U.S. White Women
Over the past half century the gap in mortality across education levels has grown in the United States, and since the mid-1980s, the growth has been especially pronounced among white women. The reasons for the growth among white women are unclear. We investigated three explanations—social-psychological factors, economic circumstances, and health behaviors—for the widening education gap in mortality from 1997 to 2006 among white women aged 45 to 8…
Why Have Educational Disparities in Mortality Increased Among White Women in the United States
Since the mid-1980s differences in mortality risk across education levels have widened considerably among non-Hispanic white women. For example, while mortality has declined among college-educated women, it has remained fairly stable among women with a high school credential or some college education and increased among women without a high school credential. The reasons for the growing mortality gap are poorly understood. The authors investigate…
Socioeconomic Disparities in Health Among Older Adults and the Implications for the Retirement Age Debate: A Brief Report
Our findings revealed enormous health inequalities in self-reported health, using a powerful and intuitive age-equivalence formulation. They highlighted the importance of considering health disparities in discussions about raising the retirement age, both in terms of fairness and feasibility
Why Is Life Expectancy Declining Among Low-Educated Women in the United States
AffiliationsJennifer Karas Montez is with the Department of Sociology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH. Anna Zajacova is with the Department of Sociology, University of Wyoming
Education as “the Great Equalizer”: Health Benefits for Black and White Adults
Objective Many social policies and academic studies assume that education is “the great equalizer” that is capable of counteracting the unequal social resources of different demographic groups. This study aims to determine whether non‐Hispanic whites and racial/ethnic minorities indeed experience comparable health benefits with greater educational attainment. Methods Data from the National Health Interview Survey 1997–2012 were used to conduct or…
The Nonequivalent Health of High School Equivalents
OBJECTIVES: (GED) diploma. Virtually nothing is known about the health of this large group, although literature suggests GED recipients are considerably worse off than high school graduates in numerous economic and social outcomes. We analyze general health among working-age adults with a high school diploma, GED recipients, and high school dropouts. METHODS: Ordered and binary logistic models of self-rated health and activity limitations were es…
Long-Term BMI Trajectories and Health in Older Adults: Hierarchical Clustering of Functional Curves
BMI trajectories among older adults cluster into distinct types in both genders, and the clusters vary substantially in initial health. Weight loss but not gain is associated with poor initial health in this age group
Examination of Age Variations in the Predictive Validity of Self-Rated Health
The findings of declining predictive validity of SRH across age imply that individuals may evaluate their health differently as they age. The results also suggest caution in using SRH to capture age-related health changes in the older population
The Long Arm of Adolescent Health Among Men and Women: Does Attained Status Explain Its Association with Mid-Adulthood Health
Montez and Zajacova Respond
AffiliationsJennifer Karas Montez is with the Department of Sociology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH. Anna Zajacova is with the Department of Sociology, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY
Medicine (81 works) · Gerontology (69 works) · Health disparities and outcomes (65 works) · Psychology (61 works) · Population (47 works) · Demography (46 works) · Sociology (45 works) · Demography (42 works) · Employment and Welfare Studies (32 works) · Environmental health (31 works)