摘要：Objectives . This study examined predictors of longevity in a cohort of inner-city African American women. Methods . Data were derived from a cohort study of inner-city African American mothers whose median age in 1966 was 31 years. Analyses involved single-decrement life tables and pooled logistic regression. Results . Giving birth for the first time before age 25 and having at least a high school education predicted longevity in this sample. Effects of later age at first delivery in terms of mortality risk were stronger after 55 years and, especially, after 70 years. Conclusions . The findings offer support for Geronimus's weathering hypothesis. Predictors of longevity among African Americans may be distinct from predictors for the population as a whole. It is well known that African Americans have higher death rates than other subgroups of Americans. 1 In addition, recent within-city studies of mortality rates have revealed that African Americans residing in poor, inner-city neighborhoods that are racially segregated have higher mortality rates than other African Americans living in different areas of the same city. 2 Although the relatively high mortality rates among African American infants have received the most attention, 3 working-age 4 and old-age mortality rates (except possibly at the very oldest ages 5 ) are also higher among African Americans than other groups. Epidemiologists hypothesize that differences in mortality rates across populations are due to differences in the prevalence of individual-level risk factors across populations. Recent studies have identified a number of individual-level risk and protective factors associated with longevity. The longer lives of people from higher social class backgrounds have been well documented. 1, 6– 8 In addition, other social background characteristics, such as family and household composition, 1, 9– 11 have been shown to affect mortality. A theme in many recent studies of mortality is the protective effect of social networks and religious involvement. 1, 12– 15 In general, introduction of controls for these individual-level risk factors in multivariate models of longevity has not eliminated the negative effect of being African American. 1, 16 One possible reason is that there are differences between African Americans and the groups with which they have been compared in terms of risk and protective factors for longevity. For example, Schoenbach and his colleagues 14 found that social network ties promote longevity among European Americans but not African Americans. We used data from a longitudinal study 17 (the Woodlawn Project) to examine whether predictors of longevity that have demonstrable effects among European Americans have a significant impact among inner-city African American women.
