Dataset Information

Life course epidemiology: Modeling educational attainment with administrative data.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Understanding the processes across childhood and adolescence that affect later life inequalities depends on many variables for a large number of individuals measured over substantial time periods. Linkable administrative data were used to generate birth cohorts and to study pathways of inequity in childhood and early adolescence leading to differences in educational attainment. Advantages and disadvantages of using large administrative data bases for such research were highlighted.

Methods

Children born in Manitoba, Canada between 1982 and 1995 were followed until age 19 (N = 89,763), with many time-invariant measures serving as controls. Five time-varying predictors of high school graduation-three social and two health-were modelled using logistic regression and a framework for examining predictors across the life course. For each time-varying predictor, six temporal patterns were tested: full, accumulation of risk, sensitive period, and three critical period models.

Results

Predictors measured in early adolescence generated the highest odds ratios, suggesting the importance of adolescence. Full models provided the best fit for the three time-varying social measures. Residence in a low-income neighborhood was a particularly influential predictor of not graduating from high school. The transmission of risk across developmental periods was also highlighted; exposure in one period had significant implications for subsequent life stages.

Conclusion

This study advances life course epidemiology, using administrative data to clarify the relationships among several measures of social behavior, cognitive development, and health. Analyses of temporal patterns can be useful in studying such other outcomes as educational achievement, teen pregnancy, and workforce participation.

SUBMITTER: Roos LL

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5744927 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:BackgroundLife expectancy at birth in the United States will likely surpass 80 years in the coming decade. Yet recent studies suggest that longevity gains are unevenly shared across age and socioeconomic groups. First, mortality in midlife has risen among non-Hispanic whites. Second, low-educated whites have suffered stalls (men) or declines (women) in adult life expectancy, which is significantly lower than among their college-educated counterparts. Estimating the number of life years lost or gained by age and cause of death, broken down by educational attainment, is crucial in identifying vulnerable populations.Methods and findingsUsing U.S. vital statistics data from 1990 to 2010, this study decomposes the change in life expectancy at age 25 by age and cause of death across educational attainment groups, broken down by race and gender. The findings reveal that mortality in midlife increased for white women (and to a lesser extent men) with 12 or fewer years of schooling, accounting for most of the stalls or declines in adult life expectancy observed in those groups. Among blacks, mortality declined in nearly all age and educational attainment groups. Although an educational gradient was found across multiple causes of death, between 60 and 80 percent of the gap in adult life expectancy was explained by cardiovascular diseases, smoking-related diseases, and external causes of death. Furthermore, the number of life years lost to smoking-related, external, and other causes of death increased among low- and high school-educated whites, explaining recent stalls or declines in longevity.ConclusionsLarge segments of the American population-particularly low- and high school-educated whites under age 55-are diverging from their college-educated counterparts and losing additional years of life to smoking-related diseases and external causes of death. If this trend continues, old-age mortality may also increase for these birth cohorts in the coming decades.