WP 2018-389

Recent research has found, in some groups of Americans, dramatic increases in deaths due to drug overdose and suicide and an overall stagnation of trends toward increased longevity. This study examines the link between mortality of older working age (45 to 64) adults and local economic downturns in the U.S. to evaluate the role of economic shifts in various causes of death and their related mortality trends. Specifically, we estimate regression models to test the hypotheses that the longevity effects of poor economic prospects are reflected through (1) increased suicide, drug overdose, and other “deaths of despair” and (2) other causes of death linked to exposure to economic and social stress such as heart and cerebrovascular disease. To avoid the problem of endogeneity of local economic conditions to mortality conditions, we measure the local economic shock of lost employment with predicted employment based on baseline industrial composition and national trends in employment by industry. We find evidence consistent with prior research that among non-Hispanic white adults, midlife mortality has increased since 1990, particularly among those with low educational attainment. We also find that “deaths of despair” are important contributors to that trend. However, we find that while distress in local, area economies does predict increased mortality for chronic disease, it predicts decreased mortality from suicides, opioids, and other substance abuse. This finding suggests caution in the application of the construct of despair in explaining recent mortality patterns.Social Security Adminstration, Award number RRC08098401-10, R-UM18-07https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148126/1/wp389.pdfDescription of wp389.pdf : Working pape

CMV matrices in random matrix theory and integrable systems: a survey

We present a survey of recent results concerning a remarkable class of unitary matrices, the CMV matrices. We are particularly interested in the role they play in the theory of random matrices and integrable systems. Throughout the paper we also emphasize the analogies and connections to Jacobi matrices.Comment: Based on a talk given at the Short Program on Random Matrices, Random Processes and Integrable Systems, CRM, Universite de Montreal, 200

Childbearing postponement and child well-being: a complex and varied relationship?

Over the past several decades, U.S. fertility has followed a trend toward the postponement of motherhood. The socioeconomic causes and consequences of this trend have been the focus of attention in the demographic literature. Given the socioeconomic advantages of those who postpone having children, some authors have argued that the disadvantage experienced by certain groups would be reduced if they postponed their births. The weathering hypothesis literature, by integrating a biosocial perspective, complicates this argument and posits that the costs and benefits of postponement may vary systematically across population subgroups. In particular, the literature on the weathering hypothesis argues that as a consequence of their unique experiences of racism and disadvantage, African American women may experience a more rapid deterioration of their health, which could offset or eventually reverse any socioeconomic benefit of postponement. But because very few African American women postpone motherhood, efforts to find compelling evidence to support the arguments of this perspective rely on a strategy of comparison that is problematic because a potentially selected group of older black mothers are used to represent the costs of postponement. This might explain why the weathering hypothesis has played a rather limited role in the way demographers conceptualize postponement and its consequences for well-being. In order to explore the potential utility of this perspective, we turn our attention to the UK context. Because first-birth fertility schedules are similar for black and white women, we can observe (rather than assume) whether the meaning and consequences of postponement vary across these population subgroups. The results, obtained using linked UK census and birth record data, reveal evidence consistent with the weathering hypothesis in the United Kingdom and lend support to the arguments that the demographic literature would benefit from integrating insights from this biosocial perspective

A "missing" family of classical orthogonal polynomials

We study a family of "classical" orthogonal polynomials which satisfy (apart from a 3-term recurrence relation) an eigenvalue problem with a differential operator of Dunkl-type. These polynomials can be obtained from the little $q$-Jacobi polynomials in the limit $q=-1$. We also show that these polynomials provide a nontrivial realization of the Askey-Wilson algebra for $q=-1$.Comment: 20 page

Multipoint Schur algorithm and orthogonal rational functions: convergence properties, I

Classical Schur analysis is intimately connected to the theory of orthogonal polynomials on the circle [Simon, 2005]. We investigate here the connection between multipoint Schur analysis and orthogonal rational functions. Specifically, we study the convergence of the Wall rational functions via the development of a rational analogue to the Szeg\H o theory, in the case where the interpolation points may accumulate on the unit circle. This leads us to generalize results from [Khrushchev,2001], [Bultheel et al., 1999], and yields asymptotics of a novel type.Comment: a preliminary version, 39 pages; some changes in the Introduction, Section 5 (Szeg\H o type asymptotics) is extende

Jedi public health: Co-creating an identity-safe culture to promote health equity

© 2016 The Authors. The extent to which socially-assigned and culturally mediated social identity affects health depends on contingencies of social identity that vary across and within populations in day-to-day life. These contingencies are structurally rooted and health damaging inasmuch as they activate physiological stress responses. They also have adverse effects on cognition and emotion, undermining self-confidence and diminishing academic performance. This impact reduces opportunities for social mobility, while ensuring those who "beat the odds" pay a physical price for their positive efforts. Recent applications of social identity theory toward closing racial, ethnic, and gender academic achievement gaps through changing features of educational settings, rather than individual students, have proved fruitful. We sought to integrate this evidence with growing social epidemiological evidence that structurally-rooted biopsychosocial processes have population health effects. We explicate an emergent framework, Jedi Public Health (JPH). JPH focuses on changing features of settings in everyday life, rather than individuals, to promote population health equity, a high priority, yet, elusive national public health objective. We call for an expansion and, in some ways, a re-orienting of efforts to eliminate population health inequity. Policies and interventions to remove and replace discrediting cues in everyday settings hold promise for disrupting the repeated physiological stress process activation that fuels population health inequities with potentially wide application.National Institute on Aging (Grant # R01 AG032632)National Institute on Aging (Grant # T32 AG00221

Jordan algebras and orthogonal polynomials

We illustrate how Jordan algebras can provide a framework for the interpretation of certain classes of orthogonal polynomials. The big -1 Jacobi polynomials are eigenfunctions of a first order operator of Dunkl type. We consider an algebra that has this operator (up to constants) as one of its three generators and whose defining relations are given in terms of anticommutators. It is a special case of the Askey-Wilson algebra AW(3). We show how the structure and recurrence relations of the big -1 Jacobi polynomials are obtained from the representations of this algebra. We also present ladder operators for these polynomials and point out that the big -1 Jacobi polynomials satisfy the Hahn property with respect to a generalized Dunkl operator.Comment: 11 pages, 30 reference

America’s Declining Well-Being, Health, and Life Expectancy: Not Just a White Problem

Although recent declines in life expectancy among non-Hispanic Whites, coined “deaths of despair,” grabbed the headlines of most major media outlets, this is neither a recent problem nor is it confined to Whites. The decline in America’s health has been described in the public health literature for decades and has long been hypothesized to be attributable to an array of worsening psychosocial problems that are not specific to Whites. To test some of the dominant hypotheses, we show how various measures of despair have been increasing in the United States since 1980 and how these trends relate to changes in health and longevity. We show that mortality increases among Whites caused by the opioid epidemic come on the heels of the crack and HIV syndemic among Blacks. Both occurred on top of already higher mortality rates among all Americans relative to people in other nations, and both occurred among declines in measures of well-being. We believe that the attention given to Whites is distracting researchers and policymakers from much more serious, longer-term structural problems that affect all Americans