Volume 33 - Article 36 | Pages 1035–1046  

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

By Susan Hautaniemi Leonard, Christopher Robinson, Alan C. Swedlund, Douglas Anderton

Abstract

Background: 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.

Objective: 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.

Methods: 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.

Results: 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.

Author's Affiliation

• Susan Hautaniemi Leonard - University of Michigan, United States of America EMAIL
• Christopher Robinson - University of South Carolina, United States of America EMAIL
• Alan C. Swedlund - University of Massachusetts Amherst, United States of America EMAIL
• Douglas Anderton - University of South Carolina, United States of America EMAIL

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