ArticleSSM - population health2019
Rising geographic inequality in mortality in the United States.
Article in SSM - population health, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 38 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
38 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 69 citations in OpenAlex.
- A systematic review of the association between alcohol-related deaths and area-level socioeconomic deprivation and other geographic characteristics in high-income countries.BMC public health · 2026Pooled it
- A Bilingual HIV Status-Neutral Intervention to Promote Heath Equity Among GBQMSM and Transgender and Nonbinary Persons in Appalachia: Outcomes From the Appalachian Access Project Intervention Trial.AIDS education and prevention : official publication of the International Society for AIDS Education · 2025Trial
- Urban Sprawl, Natural Environments, and Mortality Inequality: Socioeconomic Pathways and Spatial Heterogeneity Across U.S. Counties.Applied geography (Sevenoaks, England) · 2026Article
- Spatial Cluster of Air Pollutants and Its Association with Life Expectancy, Age-Specific Mortality Risk, and Cause-Specific Mortality Rate: A County-Level Ecological Study Across the USA.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Childhood SES gradients in adult functional limitations: Does state-level macro-economic context matter?Social science & medicine (1982) · 2025Article
- Chronic pain prevalence and trends in urban, suburban, and rural areas among American adults aged 55+, 1998-2022.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2025Article
- Spatial Trends in Mortality Convergence: The Cases of France, Italy, and Spain, 1975-2019.European journal of population = Revue europeenne de demographie · 2025Article
- Spatially Continuous Maps of Disease Risk: An Analysis of Mortality Disparities in the United States.AJPM focus · 2025Article
- Pre-COVID-19 Geographic Inequalities in Non-Hispanic Black US Life Expectancy, 1990 to 2019.Population and development review · 2025Article
- The Association between the Volatility of Income and Life Expectancy in the United States.Journal of labor economics · 2025Article
- Diabetes On Track: Redesigning Diabetes Management in Rural Primary Care.Diabetes spectrum : a publication of the American Diabetes Association · 2025Article
- The urban-rural gap in older Americans' healthy life expectancy.The Journal of rural health : official journal of the American Rural Health Association and the National Rural Health Care Association · 2025Article
- Ten Americas: a systematic analysis of life expectancy disparities in the USA.Lancet (London, England) · 2024Article
- Medical financial hardship in the Southern United States: the struggle continues across generations pre- and post- the Affordable Care Act.Research in health services & regions · 2024Article
- Life expectancy and geographic variation in mortality: an observational comparison study of six high-income Anglophone countries.BMJ open · 2024Observational
- Geographically specific associations between county-level socioeconomic and household distress and mortality from drug poisoning, suicide, alcohol, and homicide among working-age adults in the United States.SSM - population health · 2024Article
- Exploring Individual and Contextual Factors Associated With Sexual Risk and Substance Use Among Underserved GBQMSM and Transgender and Nonbinary Persons in South Central Appalachia.AIDS education and prevention : official publication of the International Society for AIDS Education · 2023Article
- Factors Associated with Severe COVID-19 Among Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis: A Large, Nationwide Electronic Health Record Cohort Study in the United States.Advances in therapy · 2023Article
- Editorial: Geographic inequalities in health and mortality: factors contributing to trends and differentials.Frontiers in public health · 2023Article
- Enhancing the Utility of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to Identify Drivers of Rising Mortality Rates in the United States.Forum for health economics & policy · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
objectivesTo examine trends in inequality in life expectancy and age-specific death rates across 40 US spatial units from 1990 to 2016.
methodsWe use multiple cause-of-death data from vital statistics to estimate measures of inequality in mortality across metropolitan status and geographic region. We consider trends for 5-year age intervals and examine inequality in cause-specific mortality.
resultsFor both sexes, spatial inequality in life expectancy and all-cause mortality above age 25 rose between 2002-04 and 2014-16. During this period, the standard deviation in life expectancy at birth increased by 19% for males and by 44% for females. Areas that had higher life expectancy at the beginning of the period enjoyed larger gains in life expectancy. Especially noteworthy are divergent trends between large central metropolitan areas on the coasts and non-metropolitan areas in Appalachia and the South. Spatial inequality in mortality from lung cancer/respiratory diseases rose substantially, particularly for older women. Spatial inequality in mortality from the combination of drug overdose, alcohol use, and suicide increased at ages 30-34, but declined at ages 50-54 and 70-74. Inequality in mortality from circulatory diseases, the largest cause of death, grew for some groups, particularly 30-34 year-old women. Mortality from screenable cancers, an indicator of the performance of medical systems, showed relatively little spatial disparity during the period.
conclusionsSpatial inequality in life expectancy at birth and adult mortality has increased in recent decades.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.