After two years without a Population Association of America (PAA) annual meeting in person, we were thrilled to have had PAA in person this year! The conference was held April 6th-9th in Atlanta, Georgia, with a virtual option for those who could not attend in person. We are pleased to report numerous researchers used CenSoc data in their work that was presented at PAA. In this post, we highlight some of that fascinating research.
Presenters and Presentations
Serge Atherwood displayed his work, “Investigating Excess Mortality Among Older U.S. Adults During and After the Anomalously Severe 1980 Heat Wave,” at the “Mortality and Morbidity, COVID-19, Data and Methods” poster session. Using CenSoc–DMF data, he examines age-specific monthly mortality of men aged 65 and older (the age group most vulnerable to heat) between June and December 1980 relative to the several years before and after 1980. [Poster]
Casey F. Breen presented his work on “The Mortality Consequences of Home Ownership” in the “Socioeconomic Inequalities in Health, Life Expectancy, and Mortality” flash session. Breen uses data from the CenSoc-DMF file to investigate the causal effect of home ownership for men in young adulthood on late-life longevity using a sibling-based identification strategy. [Slides] [Poster]
Joshua R. Goldstein presented a paper co-written with CenSoc team researchers, “Mortality Modeling of Partially Observed Cohorts Using Administrative Death Record,” in the “Methodological Innovations in Mortality” session. The paper introduces a method for fitting truncated mortality distributions that can be used for estimating mortality differentials in truncated administrative data without population denominators. [Slides]
Andrea Miranda González presented “Understanding the Hispanic Mortality Paradox: Variation by Country of Origin” at the “Geographic Differences in Mortality” flash session (joint with Katerine Perez and Casey Breen). This work uses the Berkeley Unified Numident Mortality Database (BUNMD) to document life expectancy among immigrants from 22 countries in Central and South America and finds a clear mortality advantage for the majority of Hispanic subgroups with substantial variation by country of origin. [Slides] [Poster]
Maria Osborne presented her work, “Census Race Categories and the Mortality of Mixed-Race American Men in the Twentieth Century,” in the “Interracial Relationships, Multiracial Populations, and Racial Fluidity” session. Osborne, using the CenSoc-DMF file, examines the mortality of “mulattos” born in the early 20th century. This work sheds light on the dynamic process of racial classification, historical paradigms of race, and the ultimate consequences of skin color in America. [Slides]
Alexander Adames presented “Intergenerational Social Mobility and Mortality: Evidence from U.S. Linked Census-Mortality Data (1900–2005)” during the “Social Relationships and Health Disparities” session (joint with Jingying He, Xi Song, and Irma Elo). This work tests the relative importance of social origin and destination on an individual’s old-age mortality risk and finds that upwardly mobile individuals are advantaged relative to their socially immobile counterparts.
Risto Conte Keivabu presented “Race Disparities in Temperature-Related Deaths in the United States” during “The Environment and Population Health” session (joint with Ugofilippo Basellini and Emilio Zagheni). This work uses the BUNMD to investigate how extreme temperatures affect mortality and how race stratifies this relationship in the U.S. Results in the pooled sample show an increase in deaths with cold and warm days and especially hot days. The effect size of hot days on mortality is largest for Blacks and not significant for other ethnic groups, suggesting a stratified effect of heat on mortality.
Using CenSoc Data
We can’t wait to see how CenSoc data is used in future studies! For information on how to acquire these data, please visit https://censoc.berkeley.edu/data/.
Story by Kathy Perez. If you presented at PAA with CenSoc data (and you’re not on our list), we would love to hear from you! Email censoc@berkeley.edu.