The effects of wealth, occupation, and immigration on epidemic mortality from selected infectious diseases and epidemics in Holyoke township, Massachusetts, 1850−1912

• Main Authors: Susan Hautaniemi Leonard, Christopher Robinson, Alan C. Swedlund, Douglas L. Anderton
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research 2015-11-01
• Series: Demographic Research
• Subjects: epidemic mortality; immigration; industrial town; New England; Poisson regression; socio-economic effects
• Online Access: http://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol33/36/

<b>Background</b>: Previous research suggests individual-level socioeconomic circumstances and resources may be especially salient influences on mortality within the broader context of social, economic, and environmental factors affecting urban 19th century mortality. <b>Objective</b>: We sought to test individual-level socioeconomic effects on mortality from infectious and often epidemic diseases in the context of an emerging New England industrial mill town. <b>Methods</b>: We analyze mortality data from comprehensive death records and a sample of death records linked to census data, for an emergent industrial New England town, to analyze infectious mortality and model socioeconomic effects using Poisson rate regression. <b>Results</b>: Despite our expectations that individual resources might be especially salient in the harsh mortality setting of a crowded, rapidly growing, emergent, industrial mill town with high levels of impoverishment, infectious mortality was not significantly lowered by individual socio-economic status or resources.