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Mortality Variation in U.S. Cities in 1900: A Two-Level Explanation by Cause of Death and Underlying Factors

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Eileen M. Crimmins  and
Gretchen A. Condran
Eileen M. Crimmins
Affiliation:
University of Southern California
Gretchen A. Condran
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania
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Extract

Health conditions in United States cities at the turn of the twentieth century were very poor. Bleak pictures of crowded dwellings, contaminated water supplies, and filthy streets have been painted by numerous observers of urban areas at the time (Smith, 1964). While the effects of these conditions on mortality levels have not been precisely measured, urban mortality rates were consistently higher than rural mortality rates in 1900 in the United States (Condran and Crimmins, 1980). Nevertheless, considerable variation in the mortality levels of different cities also existed. Our goal in this article is to explain the variation in the mortality conditions in U.S. cities for which death registration data were collected in 1900. The analysis is done in two stages. First, the causes of death which accounted for the different mortality levels are isolated. Second, a multivariate analysis of the factors affecting the rates of occurrence of these causes of death is performed.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Science History , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , Winter 1983 , pp. 31 - 59
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 1983 

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Footnotes

This research was supported by grants from the National Institute of Aging (PHS AG 02699-01) and from the Center for Population Research, National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (R0 I H D 12413). The latter grant is held at the Philadelphia Social History Project, Theodore Hershberg, Director.

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