Socioeconomic Status and Mortality in the U.S., 1850-1880

自20世纪60年代以来，许多研究已经证明了低社会经济地位（SES）与疾病和过早死亡的高风险之间的联系。该项目将通过在1850年至1880年的人口普查年份中，在农村和城市县的样本中，制作关于5，000多名死者和625，000多名幸存者的数据，来了解SES在缩小健康结果差异方面取得的长期进展。这将通过将1850- 1880年人口普查的道德表中的个人与包含每个死者家庭幸存成员的相应人口表联系起来来实现。对于每个幸存者和死者，关联样本将包含有关是否发生死亡的信息（如果发生了，其具体原因），以及家庭的财富持有量，职业地位，识字率和入学模式。结合每个家庭所在地的信息，这将使我们有可能考虑在美国经历快速城市化和工业化的三十年期间，不同地区和特定死因的社会经济地位与特定死因死亡率之间的联系。测量和解释1850-80年期间社会经济地位与死亡率之间关系的能力将有两个实质性的好处：（1）提供历史背景，以了解当今经济环境与健康结果之间的联系，这将是公共卫生研究人员和对健康作为生活水平组成部分感兴趣的社会科学家感兴趣的;（2）为“南北战争前悖论”提供了一个新的视角经济史学家们认为，在19世纪世纪中期，人均收入不断增加，预期寿命不断下降，身体状况不断下降。由于缺乏关于死亡率的良好微观数据，大多数关于南北战争前悖论的研究都集中在身体状况上。对这一悖论的解释对于理解美国在世纪经历的经济增长的全部成本和收益至关重要。

Since the 1960s, numerous studies have documented a link between low socioeconomic status (SES) and high risk for disease and premature mortality. This project will provide an understanding of the long-run progress made in narrowing disparities in health outcomes by SES, by producing data on more than 5,000 decedents and more than 625,000 survivors in the census years between 1850 and 1880 in a sample of rural and urban counties. This will be accomplished by linking individuals from the morality schedules of the 1850-80 censuses to the corresponding population schedules containing the surviving members of each decedent's household. The linked sample will contain, for each survivor and decedent, information on whether a death occurred (and if it did, its specific cause), and the household's wealth holdings, occupational status, literacy, and school attendance patterns. Together with the information on each household's location, this will make it possible to consider the link between SES and cause-specific mortality for a variety of locations and specific causes of death during three decades when the U.S. was experiencing rapid urbanization and industrialization.The ability to measure and explain the relationship between SES and mortality in the period 1850-80 will have two substantial benefits: (1) providing historical context for understanding the present-day link between economic circumstances and health outcomes, which will be of interest to both public health researchers and social scientists interested in health as a component of the standard of living; and (2) offering a new perspective on the "antebellum paradox" of rising per capita income and falling life expectation and falling physical stature in the middle decades of the nineteenth century identified by economic historians. In the absence of good micro-level data on mortality, the focus of most research on the antebellum paradox has been on physical stature. The explanation of the paradox is crucial to understanding the full costs and benefits of the economic growth experienced by the U.S. in the nineteenth century.