Research Group
Mortality Inequalities
At a Glance
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Detailed Description
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Why do some populations live longer than others? The mortality inequalities research group investigates this fundamental question that demographers, epidemiologists, and sociologists have been grappling with for decades.
While we have gotten better at identifying many of the causal determinants of longer lives, critical questions remain unanswered, especially at the population level. Can we rank the drivers of mortality inequalities across populations? Do varying socioeconomic conditions, environmental exposures, and early-life experiences generate similar health inequalities across very different cohorts and places?
We have made little progress in answering these questions for a number of reasons. We usually study factors in isolation from one another. We more often study individual-level, rather than population-level outcomes, and, as a result, our methodologies are better suited for ranking the determinants of health for individuals than for populations. When we do study populations, we are overly reliant on synthetic cohort assumptions. Finally, with data-rich environments capturing both key and not-so-key aspects of the life course, we are answering hundreds of detailed questions of less importance. This overload of less consequential information makes us lose sight of the broader, more consequential patterns.
Our research group aims to realign and invigorate research into mortality inequalities. We focus on core, critical questions of how our populations are changing. We seek to explain why survival is becoming more heterogeneous among the disadvantaged but more homogenous among the privileged. We revisit theories of mortality convergence and refine tools for capturing variation and predictability in survival. We push to better integrate the key micro-level findings on the social determinants of health and mortality over the life course with macro-level population-compositional change.
Our datasets include longitudinal surveys, administrative register data, and aggregate census-linked population data. We collaborate broadly and globally – and are committed to open science and reproducible research.