Immigrant mortality advantage in the United States during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Objectives: To investigate the mortality impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on US-born and foreign-born populations by race and Hispanic origin in the United States in 2020.

Methods: Death records from the National Center for Health Statistics and population data from CDC WONDER were used to estimate (1) age-standardized all-cause and cause-specific mortality at ages 25+, 25-64, and 65+ in 2017-2019 and 2020 by nativity, race, Hispanic origin, and sex; (2) changes in mortality between these two periods; and (3) the cause-specific contributions to these changes.

Results: Mortality increased in 2020 relative to 2017-2019 for all racial and Hispanic-origin groups.

Excess natural-cause mortality in US counties and its association with reported COVID-19 deaths.

In the United States, estimates of excess deaths attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic have consistently surpassed reported COVID-19 death counts. Excess deaths reported to non-COVID-19 natural causes may represent unrecognized COVID-19 deaths, deaths caused by pandemic health care interruptions, and/or deaths from the pandemic's socioeconomic impacts. The geographic and temporal distribution of these deaths may help to evaluate which explanation is most plausible.

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-19 death rates by 5-year age groups and construct age-specific racial/ethnic mortality ratios across an Initial peak (Mar-Aug 2020), Winter peak (Nov 2020-Feb 2021), Delta peak (Aug-Oct 2021), Omicron peak (Nov 2021-Feb 2022), and Endemic period (Mar-Dec 2022).

Monthly excess mortality across counties in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic, March 2020 to February 2022.

Excess mortality is the difference between expected and observed mortality in a given period and has emerged as a leading measure of the COVID-19 pandemic's mortality impact. Spatially and temporally granular estimates of excess mortality are needed to understand which areas have been most impacted by the pandemic, evaluate exacerbating factors, and inform response efforts. We estimated all-cause excess mortality for the United States from March 2020 through February 2022 by county and month using a Bayesian hierarchical model trained on data from 2015 to 2019.

COVID-19 Mortality by Race and Ethnicity in US Metropolitan and Nonmetropolitan Areas, March 2020 to February 2022.

Importance: Prior research has established that Hispanic and non-Hispanic Black residents in the US experienced substantially higher COVID-19 mortality rates in 2020 than non-Hispanic White residents owing to structural racism. In 2021, these disparities decreased.

Objective: To assess to what extent national decreases in racial and ethnic disparities in COVID-19 mortality between the initial pandemic wave and subsequent Omicron wave reflect reductions in mortality vs other factors, such as the pandemic's changing geography.

Differences Between Reported COVID-19 Deaths and Estimated Excess Deaths in Counties Across the United States, March 2020 to February 2022.

Accurate and timely tracking of COVID-19 deaths is essential to a well-functioning public health surveillance system. The extent to which official COVID-19 death tallies have captured the true toll of the pandemic in the United States is unknown. In the current study, we develop a Bayesian hierarchical model to estimate monthly excess mortality in each county over the first two years of the pandemic and compare these estimates to the number of deaths officially attributed to Covid-19 on death certificates.

Decomposing County-Level Working-Age Mortality Trends in the United States Between 1999-2001 and 2015-2017.

Studies have documented significant geographic divergence in U.S. mortality in recent decades.

Evaluation of Age Patterns of COVID-19 Mortality by Race and Ethnicity From March 2020 to October 2021 in the US.

This cross-sectional study examines age-specific COVID-19 mortality rates in the US from March 2020 to October 2021 by sex and race and ethnicity.

Monthly excess mortality across counties in the United States during the Covid-19 pandemic, March 2020 to February 2022.

Excess mortality is the difference between expected and observed mortality in a given period and has emerged as a leading measure of the overall impact of the Covid-19 pandemic that is not biased by differences in testing or cause-of-death assignment. Spatially and temporally granular estimates of excess mortality are needed to understand which areas have been most impacted by the pandemic, evaluate exacerbating and mitigating factors, and inform response efforts, including allocating resources to affected communities. We estimated all-cause excess mortality for the United States from March 2020 through February 2022 by county and month using a Bayesian hierarchical model trained on data from 2015 to 2019.

Enhancing the Utility of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to Identify Drivers of Rising Mortality Rates in the United States.

A recent report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) highlights rising rates of working-age mortality in the United States, portending troubling population health trends for this group as they age. The Health and Retirement Study (HRS) is an invaluable resource for researchers studying health and aging dynamics among Americans ages 50 and above and has strong potential to be used by researchers to provide insights about the drivers of rising U.S.

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.

The unequal burden of the Covid-19 pandemic: Capturing racial/ethnic disparities in US cause-specific mortality.

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 causes of death and show how these racial and ethnic patterns vary by age and sex.

Association of Health Care Factors With Excess Deaths Not Assigned to COVID-19 in the US.

This cross-sectional study assesses health care factors associated with excess deaths not assigned to COVID-19 in US counties in 2020.

COVID-19 and excess mortality in the United States: A county-level analysis.

Background: Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) excess deaths refer to increases in mortality over what would normally have been expected in the absence of the COVID-19 pandemic. Several prior studies have calculated excess deaths in the United States but were limited to the national or state level, precluding an examination of area-level variation in excess mortality and excess deaths not assigned to COVID-19. In this study, we take advantage of county-level variation in COVID-19 mortality to estimate excess deaths associated with the pandemic and examine how the extent of excess mortality not assigned to COVID-19 varies across subsets of counties defined by sociodemographic and health characteristics.

The implications of changing education distributions for life expectancy gradients.

Recent research has proposed that shifting education distributions across cohorts are influencing estimates of educational gradients in mortality. We use data from the United States and Finland covering four decades to explore this assertion. We base our analysis around our new finding: a negative logarithmic relationship between relative education and relative mortality.

Assessing the Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on US Mortality: A County-Level Analysis.

Background: Covid-19 excess deaths refer to increases in mortality over what would normally have been expected in the absence of the Covid-19 pandemic. Several prior studies have calculated excess deaths in the United States but were limited to the national or state level, precluding an examination of area-level variation in excess mortality and excess deaths not assigned to Covid-19. In this study, we take advantage of county-level variation in Covid-19 mortality to estimate excess deaths associated with the pandemic and examine how the extent of excess mortality not assigned to Covid-19 varies across subsets of counties defined by sociodemographic and health characteristics.

The association between discrimination and health: findings on Russian, Somali and Kurdish origin populations in Finland.

Background: The Second European Union Minorities and Discrimination Survey recently demonstrated widespread discrimination across EU countries, with high discrimination rates observed in countries like Finland. Discrimination is known to negatively impact health, but fewer studies have examined how different types of perceived discrimination are related to health.

Methods: This study examines (i) the prevalence of different types of perceived discrimination among Russian, Somali and Kurdish origin populations in Finland, and (ii) the association between different types of perceived discrimination (no experiences; subtle discrimination only; overt or subtle and overt discrimination) and health (self-rated health; limiting long-term illness (LLTI) or disability; mental health symptoms).

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 (PAFs) by age, sex, and race/ethnicity at ages 30 and above.

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.

Children's educational attainment, occupation, and income and their parents' mortality.

Using data from Finland, this paper contributes to a small but growing body of research regarding adult children's education, occupation, and income and their parents' mortality at ages 50+ in 1970-2007. Higher levels of children's education are associated with 30-36 per cent lower parental mortality at ages 50-75, controlling for parents' education, occupation, and income. This association is fully mediated by children's occupation and income, except for cancer mortality.

Forced migration in childhood: are there long-term health effects?

Studies on the health of migrants have increased considerably in number in recent years, but little is still known about the long-term health effects associated with forced migration, and particularly for people who were forced to migrate as children. Data shortcomings together with the methodological challenges of studying migrant populations limit the ability to disentangle the roles of various factors that influence migrant health outcomes. Finland provides an unusual opportunity to study long-term health consequences associated with forced migration.

Contribution of smoking-attributable mortality to life expectancy differences by marital status among Finnish men and women, 1971-2010.

Background: Smoking is known to vary by marital status, but little is known about its contribution to marital status differences in longevity. We examined the changing contribution of smoking to mortality differences between married and never married, divorced or widowed Finnish men and women aged 50 years and above in 1971-2010.

Data And Methods: The data sets cover all persons permanently living in Finland in the census years 1970, 1975 through 2000 and 2005 with a five-year mortality follow-up.