Early Indicators of Later Work Levels, Disease and Death

National Bureau Of Economic Research, Cambridge MA

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Abstract

[unreadable] DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The aims of this program project, as funded, are to: 1. investigate the impact of socioeconomic and biomedical insults during developmental, middle-life, and older ages on the onset of specific chronic diseases at middle and late ages, and on waiting time to death from specific causes in both white and black populations; 2. examine the effect of pensions and health on the demand for retirement and for independent living arrangements among black Union Army (UA) veterans; 3. Estimate what types of public health interventions have been most effective in lowering mortality, improving health in later life, and promoting exceptional longevity; 4. expand the range of biomedical and socioeconomic factors that can be considered in the life-cycle Union Army data set by linking it to the 1880 census, which provides health information, and by linking it to data on the epidemiological characteristics of cities and wards; 5. Create two new life-cycle samples, one for black UA veterans and one for men rejected for service from the UA; and 6. Maintain and improve the life-cycle sample of white UA veterans and encourage wider use through a sub-grants program. The supplement will enhance the program project by expanding the life-cycle data set of white UA veterans by creating a sample of brothers, allowing incorporation of a much richer set of covariates into the analysis. It will help us better understand what determines pension outcomes and provide valuable input for our analysis of the effects of pensions on black and white retirement rates and living arrangements. It will enhance the analysis of the predictors of later morbidity and mortality carried out under the parent grant by focusing on a specific devastating and relatively common affliction--lead poisoning. Specifically, the aims of this supplemental application are to: 1. investigate the impact of observable familial factors on health and mortality across the life cycle and to estimate the social and environmental determinants of morbidity and longevity controlling for unobserved heterogeneity at the family level; 2. examine the social construction of disability in the past and the role of politics in past disability programs; 3. document the proportion of the population, by subgroups, with elevated lead levels and examine the effects of lead exposure on health, morbidity, mortality, and labor force participation; and 4. speed up the collection of the life-cycle sample of black Union Army veterans, expand the current public database to cover the beginning of the twentieth century, and create a life-cycle sample of brothers who served in the Union Army. Finally, we propose to expand the Administrative Core D commensurately to support the new scientific projects and the expanded Data Extension Core B. [unreadable] [unreadable]