PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Reynolds, Nicholas
TI  - Increased mortality of white Americans and a decline in the health of cohorts born after World War II
AID  - 10.3368/jhr.0620-10973R3
DP  - 2024 Sep 11
TA  - Journal of Human Resources
PG  - 0620-10973R3
4099  - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/early/2024/09/03/jhr.0620-10973R3.short
4100  - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/early/2024/09/03/jhr.0620-10973R3.full
AB  - I show evidence that recent increases in mortality of white Americans are rooted in a decline in the health of cohorts born after World War II, relative to the prior trend. I identify the role of cohort health by imposing the impact of age on mortality to follow the log-linear, Gompertz form. Log mortality rates in every year between 1985 and 2015 exhibit slope changes centered at the 1946 cohort for white men and the 1949 cohort for white women, consistent with a health decline beginning precisely with those cohorts. Evidence of the cohort health decline predates the opioid epidemic.