We investigate age-specific mortality in Britain and the United States since 1950. Neither trends in income nor in … patterns of mortality decline. Patterns of income inequality were similar in both countries, but adult and elderly mortality … rates declined most rapidly during the period when inequality increased. Changes in the rate of mortality decline in the US …

highly correlated with the series on e10 and other measures of mortality. It is estimated that improvements in nutritional … status may have accounted for as much as four-tenths of the secular decline in mortality rates, but nearly all of this effect … was concentrated in the reduction of infant mortality. Additional results include an assessment of the effect of toxic …

e0(10) and other measures of mortality. Third, these correlations are used to estimate the contribution of improvements … in nutritional status (not diet alone but diet net of prior claims) to the decline in mortality in Europe and America … since 1800. Improvements in nutritional status may have accounted for as ifiuch as four tenths of the decline in mortality …

was an excellent predictor of older age mortality from ischemic heart disease or stroke. Changes in frame size explain … roughly three-fifths of the mortality decline among white men between 1915 and 1988 and predict even sharper declines in older … age mortality between 1988 and 2022. Data accompanying this paper can be found at <a href="http://www.nber.org/gould">www.nber.org/gould</a> …

This paper sketches a theory of the secular decline in morbidity and mortality that takes account of changes in human …

provision of adequate diets for young children in the United States. An examination of the Health and Nutrition Examination …