Laboratory

Population Health

At a Glance Projects Publications Team

Project

Behavioral Determinants of Health and Mortality

Conducted by Mikko Myrskylä; Yana Catherine Vierboom, Christian Dudel, Pekka Martikainen, Kieron Barclay, Enrique Acosta; in Collaboration with Samuel H. Preston (University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA)

Detailed Description

This project improves our understanding of the link between health behaviors and health as well as mortality outcomes. In addition to more traditional health behaviors, such as cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption, and drug use, we consider the health and mortality implications of conditions regarded as markers of diet, physical activity, and lifestyle, such as diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular disease.

We take both macro- and micro-level perspectives. Whereas one vein of research examines the impact of health behaviors on trends in health and mortality across populations, another vein investigates the extent to which differential health behaviors account for variations within populations. How do differential health behaviors, for example, shape regional patterns in mortality?

We use high-quality register and survey data, primarily from high-income countries. The data allow us to carefully examine the prevalence of health behaviors and morbidities and investigate trends in mortality from causes of death representing risky health behaviors, such as alcohol-related mortality.

Our comparisons between groups with different health behaviors help us quantify the extent to which certain health behaviors limit good health and long lives. Such comparisons also indicate the gains in health and mortality that are possible without requiring medical or technological innovations and that can be achieved through policies that effectively reduce risky health behaviors.

Publications

Lahtinen, H.; Moustgaard, H.; Ripatti, S.; Martikainen, P.:

Association between genetic risk of alcohol consumption and alcohol-related morbidity and mortality under different alcohol policy conditions: evidence from the Finnish alcohol price reduction of 2004

Addiction 118:4, 678–685. (2023)    

Luukkonen, J.; Tarkiainen, L.; Martikainen, P.; Remes, H. M.:

Minimum legal drinking age and alcohol-attributable morbidity and mortality by age 63 years: a register-based cohort study based on alcohol reform

The Lancet Public Health 8:5, e339–e346. (2023)    

Bishop, L.; Barclay, K. J.:

Birth order and health events attributable to alcohol and narcotics in midlife: a 25-year follow-up of a national Swedish birth cohort and their siblings

SSM-Population Health 19:101219, 1–8. (2022)    

Hu, Y.; Korhonen, K.; Li, P.; Bobak, M.; Martikainen, P.; Bijlsma, M. J.:

Association between alcohol use disorders and dementia in 262,703 dementia-free Finnish adults: is cardiovascular disease a mediator?

Journals of Gerontology, Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences, 1–8. (2022)    

Laine, R.; Myrskylä, M.; Kaskela, T.; Pitkänen, T.:

Imprisonment, community sanctions and mortality by cause of death among patients with substance use disorder – a 28-year follow-up using Finnish register data

Drug and Alcohol Dependence 232:109327, 1–9. (2022)    

Moustgaard, H.; Tarkiainen, L.; Östergren, O.; Korhonen, K.; Zengarini, N.; Costa. G.; Martikainen, P.:

The contribution of alcohol-related deaths to the life-expectancy gap between people with and without depression: a cross-country comparison

Drug and Alcohol Dependence 238:109547, 1–8. (2022)    

Preston, S. H.; Vierboom, Y. C.:

How major risk factors influence mortality trends in the National Health Interview Survey

Population Center Working Paper (PSC/PARC) Series 2022-93, Philadelphia, PA. (2022)    

Todd, N.; Myrskylä, M.:

Projection of US adult obesity trends based on individual BMI trajectories

MPIDR Working Paper WP-2022-034. (2022)    

Junna, L. M.; Moustgaard, H.; Martikainen, P.:

Unemployment from stable, downsized and closed workplaces and alcohol-related mortality

Addiction 116:1, 74–82. (2021)    

Lam, A. A.; Lepe, A.; Wild, S. H.; Jackson, C.:

Diabetes comorbidities in low- and middle-income countries: an umbrella review

Journal of Global Health 11:04040, 1–16. (2021)    

Stickley, A.; Baburin, A.; Jasilionis, D.; Krumins, J.; Martikainen, P.; Kondo, N.; Leinsalu, M.:

Economic cycles and inequalities in alcohol-related mortality in the Baltic countries and Finland in 2000–2015: a register-based study

Addiction 116:12, 3357–3368. (2021)    

Acosta, E.; Gagnon, A.; Ouellette, N.; Bourbeau, R. R.; Nepomuceno, M. R.; van Raalte, A. A.:

The boomer penalty: excess mortality among baby boomers in Canada and the United States

MPIDR Working Paper WP-2020-003. (2020)    

Mehta, N. K.; Abrams, L. R.; Myrskylä, M.:

US life expectancy stalls due to cardiovascular disease, not drug deaths

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 117:13, 6998–7000. (2020)    

Metsä-Simola, N.; Moustgaard, H.; Martikainen, P.:

Time patterns of external and alcohol-related mortality after marital and non-marital separation: the contribution of psychiatric morbidity

Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 74:6, 510–518. (2020)    

Bijwaard, G. E.; Tynelius, P.; Myrskylä, M.:

Education, cognitive ability, and cause-specific mortality: a structural approach

Population Studies 73:2, 217–232. (2019)    

Martikainen, P.; Jasilionis, D.; Junna, L. M.; Tarkiainen, L.:

Life expectancy among Finnish men and women with doctorate degrees over the period 1971-2015

Epidemiology 30:6, e32–e33. (2019)    

Stefler, D.; Hu, Y.; Malyutina, S.; Pajak, A.; Kubinova, R.; Peasey, A.; Pikhart, H.; Rodriguez-Artalejo, F.; Bobak, M.:

Mediterranean diet and physical functioning trajectories in Eastern Europe: findings from the HAPIEE study

PLOS One 13:7, e0200460–e0200460. (2018)    

Vidra, N.; Bijlsma, M. J.; Trias Llimós, S.; Janssen, F.:

Past trends in obesity-attributable mortality in eight European countries: an application of age-period-cohort analysis

International Journal of Public Health 63:6, 683–692. (2018)    

Bijwaard, G. E.; Myrskylä, M.; Tynelius, P.; Rasmussen, F.:

Educational gain in cause-specific mortality: accounting for confounders

MPIDR Working Paper WP-2017-003. (2017)    

Herttua, K.; Östergren, O.; Lundberg, O.; Martikainen, P.:

Influence of affordability of alcohol on educational disparities in alcohol-related mortality in Finland and Sweden: a time series analysis

Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 71:12, 1168–1176. (2017)    

Vogt, T. C.; van Raalte, A. A.; Grigoriev, P.; Myrskylä, M.:

The German East-West mortality difference: two crossovers driven by smoking

Demography 54:3, 1051–1071. (2017)