Laboratory

Population Health

At a Glance Projects Publications Team

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Steadily increasing longevity is both an impressive achievement and a major challenge for the developed world. Continued improvements in life expectancy inevitably contribute to population aging, and are expected to strongly decrease the worker-to-non-worker ratio. The extent to which increasing longevity is good news at the individual and societal level depends on the answers to three key questions. First, are the extra years of life spent in good or in poor health? Second, what factors influence the health status, and how does this vary over the life course and across sociodemographic and spatiotemporal contexts? Three, how can health be measured, and which methods, models, and measures are most suitable for the analysis of population health? Research being conducted at the laboratory of Population Health focuses on these three questions.   Detailed Description

Selected Publications

Schöley, J.; Karlinsky, A.; Kobak, D.; Tallack, C.:

Conflicting COVID-19 excess mortality estimates

The Lancet 401:10375, 431–432. (2023)       

Dierker, P.; Kühn, M.; Mönkediek, B.:

Does parental separation moderate the heritability of health risk behavior among adolescents?

Social Science and Medicine 331:116070, 1–9. (2023)    

Gueltzow, M.; Bijlsma, M. J.; van Lenthe, F. J.; Myrskylä, M.:

The role of labor market inequalities in explaining the gender gap in depression risk among older US adults

Social Science and Medicine 332:116100, 1–9. (2023)       

Jang, S. Y.; Oksuzyan, A.; Myrskylä, M.; van Lenthe, F. J.; Loi, S.:

Healthy immigrants, unhealthy ageing? Analysis of health decline among older migrants and natives across European countries

SSM-Population Health 23:101478, 1–11. (2023)       

Sharma, S.; Hale, J. M.; Myrskylä, M.; Kulu, H.:

Racial, ethnic, nativity, and educational disparities in cognitive impairment and activity limitations in the United States, 1998–2016

Demography 60:5, 1441–1468. (2023)    

Stonkute, D.; Lorenti, A.; Spijker, J. J. A.:

Educational disparities in disability-free life expectancy across Europe: a focus on the East-West gaps from a gender perspective

SSM-Population Health 23:101470, 1–9. (2023)       

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

The "double jeopardy" of midlife and old age mortality trends in the United States

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 120:42, e2308360120–e2308360120. (2023)