Posted on

What’s to blame for the lagging U.S life expectancy? A closer look at mid-life ‘deaths of despair’ and retirement-age chronic disease

Head shot of Leah Abrams

Recent Sloan Fellow on Aging and Work Leah Abrams, PhD, is lead author on A Brief Report published in PNAS Demography that explores what could be driving the troubling status of U.S. life expectancy which has been stagnating since 2010. Abrams and her colleagues find chronic disease at the time of retirement to be a bigger factor than the ‘deaths of despair’ (drug overdose, alcohol abuse, and suicide) that have…

Continue reading “What’s to blame for the lagging U.S life expectancy? A closer look at mid-life ‘deaths of despair’ and retirement-age chronic disease”

Posted on

Men (not women) found to receive more social support after losing spouse and when suffering from physical health issue in rural South Africa

Older man in South Africa sitting in a field

A study authored by Harvard Pop Center Research Scientist Elyse Jennings, PhD, and her colleagues Margaret Ralston and Enid Schatz, reveals the levels of social support experienced by older adults in rural South Africa after losing a spouse, and/or experiencing a physical limitation or chronic health issue.