IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/poprpr/v32y2013i3p325-352.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Nondrinker Mortality Risk in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Richard Rogers
  • Patrick Krueger
  • Richard Miech
  • Elizabeth Lawrence
  • Robert Kemp

Abstract

The literature has shown that people who do not drink alcohol are at greater risk for death than light to moderate drinkers, yet the reasons for this remain largely unexplained. We examine whether variation in people’s reasons for nondrinking explains the increased mortality. Our data come from the 1988–2006 National Health Interview Survey Linked Mortality File (N = 41,076 individuals age 21 and above, of whom 10,421 died over the follow-up period). The results indicate that nondrinkers include several different groups that have unique mortality risks. Among abstainers and light drinkers the risk of mortality is the same as light drinkers for a subgroup who report that they do not drink because of their family upbringing, and moral/religious reasons. In contrast, the risk of mortality is higher than light drinkers for former drinkers who cite health problems or who report problematic drinking behaviors. Our findings address a notable gap in the literature and may inform social policies to reduce or prevent alcohol abuse, increase health, and lengthen life. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Suggested Citation

  • Richard Rogers & Patrick Krueger & Richard Miech & Elizabeth Lawrence & Robert Kemp, 2013. "Nondrinker Mortality Risk in the United States," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 32(3), pages 325-352, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:poprpr:v:32:y:2013:i:3:p:325-352
    DOI: 10.1007/s11113-013-9268-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11113-013-9268-7
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11113-013-9268-7?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Krueger, Patrick M. & Saint Onge, Jarron M. & Chang, Virginia W., 2011. "Race/ethnic differences in adult mortality: The role of perceived stress and health behaviors," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 73(9), pages 1312-1322.
    2. Krueger, P.M. & Chang, V.W., 2008. "Being poor and coping with stress: Health behaviors and the risk of death," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 98(5), pages 889-896.
    3. Umberson, Debra, 1992. "Gender, marital status and the social control of health behavior," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 34(8), pages 907-917, April.
    4. Cutler, David M. & Lleras-Muney, Adriana, 2010. "Understanding differences in health behaviors by education," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 1-28, January.
    5. Robert Hummer & Richard Rogers & Charles Nam & Christopher Ellison, 1999. "Religious involvement and U.S. adult mortality," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 36(2), pages 273-285, May.
    6. Williamson, D.F. & Forman, M.R. & Binkin, N.J. & Gentry, E.M. & Remington, P.L. & Trowbridge, F.L., 1987. "Alcohol and body weight in United States adults," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 77(10), pages 1324-1330.
    7. Michael T. French & Edward C. Norton & Hai Fang & Johanna Catherine Maclean, 2010. "Alcohol consumption and body weight," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(7), pages 814-832, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Adam Burke & Richard L Nahin & Barbara J Stussman, 2015. "Limited Health Knowledge as a Reason for Non-Use of Four Common Complementary Health Practices," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(6), pages 1-18, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Justin T. Denney & Richard G. Rogers & Patrick M. Krueger & Tim Wadsworth, 2009. "Adult Suicide Mortality in the United States: Marital Status, Family Size, Socioeconomic Status, and Differences by Sex," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 90(5), pages 1167-1185, December.
    2. Corinne Reczek & Hui Liu & Dustin Brown, 2014. "Cigarette Smoking in Same-Sex and Different-Sex Unions: The Role of Socioeconomic and Psychological Factors," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 33(4), pages 527-551, August.
    3. G. Miller & Yuriy Pylypchuk, 2014. "Marital Status, Spousal Characteristics, and the Use of Preventive Care," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 35(3), pages 323-338, September.
    4. Latif, Ehsan, 2014. "The impact of recession on drinking and smoking behaviours in Canada," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 43-56.
    5. Chioun Lee, 2018. "Adult Children’s Education and Physiological Dysregulation Among Older Parents," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 73(6), pages 1143-1154.
    6. Jon Anson, 2010. "Beyond Material Explanations: Family Solidarity and Mortality, a Small Area‐level Analysis," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 36(1), pages 27-45, March.
    7. Bergvall, Sanna & Fernström, Clara & Ranehill, Eva & Sandberg, Anna, 2024. "The Impact of PhD Studies on Mental Health—A Longitudinal Population Study," Working Papers in Economics 846, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    8. Resul Cesur & Naci H. Mocan, 2013. "Does Secular Education Impact Religiosity, Electoral Participation and the Propensity to Vote for Islamic Parties? Evidence from an Education Reform in a Muslim Country," NBER Working Papers 19769, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Dalton, Patricio S. & Nhung, Nguyen & Rüschenpöhler, Julius, 2020. "Worries of the poor: The impact of financial burden on the risk attitudes of micro-entrepreneurs," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    10. Nóra Kovács & Anita Pálinkás & Valéria Sipos & Attila Nagy & Nouh Harsha & László Kőrösi & Magor Papp & Róza Ádány & Orsolya Varga & János Sándor, 2019. "Factors Associated with Practice-Level Performance Indicators in Primary Health Care in Hungary: A Nationwide Cross-Sectional Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(17), pages 1-15, August.
    11. Tansel, Aysit & Karao?lan, Deniz, 2016. "The Causal Effect of Education on Health Behaviors: Evidence from Turkey," IZA Discussion Papers 10020, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Chen, Yuanyuan & Wang, Haining & Cheng, Zhiming & Smyth, Russell, 2023. "Education and Migrant Health in China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    13. Sonja Settele & Reyn van Ewijk, 2017. "The effect of cigarette taxes during pregnancy on educational outcomes of the next generation," IAAEU Discussion Papers 201703, Institute of Labour Law and Industrial Relations in the European Union (IAAEU).
    14. Missinne, Sarah & Colman, Elien & Bracke, Piet, 2013. "Spousal influence on mammography screening: A life course perspective," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 63-70.
    15. Michael Keane & Elena Capatina & Shiko Maruyama, 2019. "Health Shocks and the Evolution of Earnings over the Life-Cycle," Discussion Papers 2018-14a, School of Economics, The University of New South Wales.
    16. Barış Alpaslan & Julide Yildirim, 2020. "The Missing Link: Are Individuals with More Social Capital in Better Health? Evidence from India," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 150(3), pages 811-834, August.
    17. Zhuang Hao & Benjamin W. Cowan, 2019. "The Effects of Graduation Requirements on Risky Health Behaviors of High School Students," American Journal of Health Economics, MIT Press, vol. 5(1), pages 97-125, Winter.
    18. Strulik, Holger, 2018. "The return to education in terms of wealth and health," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 12(C), pages 1-14.
    19. Ji, Sisi & Zhu, Zheyi, 2022. "Does higher education matter for health?," Cardiff Economics Working Papers E2022/4, Cardiff University, Cardiff Business School, Economics Section.
    20. Thompson, Owen, 2011. "Racial disparities in the cognition-health relationship," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 328-339, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:poprpr:v:32:y:2013:i:3:p:325-352. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.