I am looking for journal articles and statistics on the life span of
people who hold different professions. I am hoping to find trends and
see which groups of people who hold the same job live longer than other
job groups. All I would need in the answer is a list of maximum 20,
min 10 journal articles (only those published from 1995 on) in a
bibliography format, with an explanatory sentence if needed. I can
then look them up. Some examples of good jobs to look for are
religious professions, teachers, blue-collar (i.e. factory, custodial,
bus drivers), lawyers, politicians, etc. A wide range of professions
with varying salaries and skill levels would be ideal. I would like
this information urgently (by 12-3-03 at the latest) if possible!

---

Clarification of Question by cattiec3-ga on 02 Dec 2003 16:31 PST

Thanks for those interesting comments! I would like to clarify that
the journal articles do not specifically have to answer the question
that I am asking. Any journal articles on profession and health, death
rates of certain occupations, life spans of certain population groups,
etc. will be helpful. Since I am requesting so many articles, they can
be related to the general topic from many different angles. Or they
may be minimally related but provide interesting information. Hope
this works :)

---

Request for Question Clarification by czh-ga on 02 Dec 2003 17:14 PST

Hello cattiec3-ga,

This is a tougher search project than you would expect. It is very
difficult to get longevity statistics related to specific occupations.
Since your last clarification has expanded the possible scope of the
journal articles you?re looking for, I?d like to make sure I?m on the
right track. Here is a sampling of the kinds of information that?s
available. Will these meet your requirements? I look forward to your
clarification.

~ czh ~

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_population/Life_Expect_Social_class_1972-99/Life_Expect_Social_class_1972-99.pdf

http://www.sustainable-development.gov.uk/sustainable/quality99/chap4/04f03.htm
Quality of Life Counts
Between 1972 and 1996 life expectancy in England and Wales has
increased for all Social Classes, but those in professional and
managerial occupations can expect to live longer than those in partly
skilled and unskilled occupations.

***** This study groups the population into six categories.

--------------------------------------------

http://www.apa.org/journals/psp/psp805804.html
Positive Emotions in Early Life and Longevity: Findings from the Nun Study
ABSTRACT
Handwritten autobiographies from 180 Catholic nuns, composed when
participants were a mean age of 22 years, were scored for emotional
content and related to survival during ages 75 to 95. A strong inverse
association was found between positive emotional content in these
writings and risk of mortality in late life ( p < .001). As the
quartile ranking of positive emotion in early life increased, there
was a stepwise decrease in risk of mortality resulting in a 2.5-fold
difference between the lowest and highest quartiles. Positive
emotional content in early-life autobiographies was strongly
associated with longevity 6 decades later. Underlying mechanisms of
balanced emotional states are discussed.

---------------------------------------------

http://spot.colorado.edu/~gravesp/WPLifeExpectancy6-6-02.htm
Predicting Life Expectancy: A Cross-Country Empirical Analysis 

Countless factors affect life expectancy at the individual level (e.g.
nutrition, exercise, income, education, risk-taking, and stress). Even
in studies employing large numbers of individuals the full gamut of
potential variables cannot be properly measured and controlled. Hence,
using countrywide data might offer the advantage that many variables
that are important at an individual level may "wash out" in the
process of aggregation.

Principal categories of variables that influence life expectancy are
technology, education, disposable income, urbanization, inequality,
healthcare, and health risks/epidemics.

---

Clarification of Question by cattiec3-ga on 02 Dec 2003 19:40 PST

Hi czh,
That information is definitely the type of information that I am
seeking. It is helpful to have those types of studies that are all
about different things because what I am going to do in an analysis is
form a conclusion on the effect of profession on life expectency. I
will come up with this conclusion myself, and I did not expect any
study to provide an explicit answer. I hope you are now able to answer
my question.
Thanks!

---

Request for Question Clarification by czh-ga on 02 Dec 2003 21:38 PST

Thanks for confirming the direction for this research. I'll have
something for you tomorrow morning.

~ czh ~

---

Clarification of Question by cattiec3-ga on 03 Dec 2003 10:39 PST

Thanks! I'm looking forward to reading your answer and seeing what
research comes up :)

Hello again cattiec3-ga,

This was a very interesting research project because of the wealth of
resources available. I?ve collected a wide variety of study samples to
give you an overview of the kinds of materials that you could review
to advance your research. I?ve included journal articles relating to
life expectancy/mortality rates for specific occupations as well as
more general investigations. In the process of doing the research I
found many research institutes and other organizations dedicated to
conducting demographic research. Whenever possible I included links to
the organizations sponsoring the research cited in the journal
articles I found. The biggest challenge in finding information about
the life expectance of specific professions and occupations is that
there are a huge number of variables to consider. You could focus your
research and review in many different ways.

I hope that the information I?ve collected will meet your needs. Note:
The 20 resources I?ve listed are not in any particular order. I simply
listed them in the sequence I found them. Please don?t hesitate to ask
for clarification on any of the material I?ve furnished.

Best wishes for your projects.

~ czh ~



1) http://www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/inf/pr/1997/23.htm
22 October 1997
ILO warns on farm safety -- Agriculture mortality rates remain high --
Pesticides pose major health risks to global workforce

GENEVA (ILO News)  Workers in agriculture run at least twice the risk
of dying on the job as workers in other sectors according to the
Assistant Director General of the International Labour Office, Mr. Ali
Taqi, who estimates that at least 170,000 agricultural workers are
killed each year.

------------------------------------------------------


2) http://www.thedigitalship.com/DSmagazine/DS%20Sept%202002/ox%20uni%20report.doc
Seafaring ? Britain?s most dangerous occupation ? Oxford University
Unit of Health-Care Epidemiology, Department of Public Health,
University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 7LF, UK (S E Roberts PhD) (e-mail:
stephen.roberts@uhce.ox.ac.uk)
A study by Dr Stephen Roberts, of the department of public health,
university of Oxford, UK, has found that merchant seafaring and
trawler fishing are the most dangerous occupations in the UK.

------------------------------------------------------


3) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&dopt=Citation&list_uids=12642551
2003 March
Diversity of trends in occupational injury mortality in the United States, 1980-96.
Loomis D, Bena JF, Bailer AJ.
Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of
North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599-7435, USA.
Dona.Loomis@unc.edu

OBJECTIVES: Although the United States has generally enjoyed declining
rates of fatal occupational injury, the rate of decline has not been
uniform. To examine the heterogeneity of trends, changes in fatal
occupational injury rates from 1980 to 1996 were estimated by
occupation, industry, geographic region, and demographic group.

------------------------------------------------------


4) http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/cjscopy/reviews/healthchange.html
William C. Cockerham
Health and Social Change in Russia and Eastern Europe.
New York and London: Routledge, 1999, xii + 284 pp. $CDN 34.99 $US
22.99 paper (0415920817) $CDN 113.00, $US 75.00 cloth (0415920809)

------------------------------------------------------


5) http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/b197511b34ff1e8fca256bdc001223fa?OpenDocument
Measuring Australia's Progress 2002
The headline indicators -- Health

------------------------------------------------------


6) http://www.sph.uth.tmc.edu/course/occupational_envHealth/bamick/home/TPSH%20Seminar%20Series%20Materials/Hayward%20December%202003/warner&hayward_jhsbsubmission.pdf
Sptember 2003 -- A Life Course Model of Race Disparities in Men's
Mortality: The Role of Childhood Social Conditions By: David Warner
and Mark D. Hayward

***** This is a 57-page paper.

------------------------------------------------------


7) http://www.pop.psu.edu/general/pubs/working_papers/psu-pri/wp0008.pdf
August 2002 -- The Demographic Revolution in Population Aging: A
Century of Change, 1950 - 2050 By: Mark D. Hayward and Zhenmei Zhang

***** This is a 32-page paper.

------------------------------------------------------


8) http://obssr.od.nih.gov/about.html
Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR), Office of
the Director, NIH

http://obssr.od.nih.gov/bssrcc/Minutes/JulyAttachment2.pdf
8/29/01 ?Unbundling Education? What Education Confers and How It
Lowers Risk of Disease and Death?

------------------------------------------------------


9) http://www.pop.psu.edu/general/pubs/working_papers/psu-pri/wp9810.pdf
Life Course Pathways and Risk of Death: A Cause of Death Analysis
among Older Men By: Amy M. Pienta (Wayne State University), Mark D.
Hayward, and Diane K. McLaughlin

------------------------------------------------------


10) http://www.chrr.ohio-state.edu/nls-bib/qtitle.php3?myrow%5B0%5D=3152
Career Trajectories and Older Men's Retirement
Journals of Gerontology. Series B, Psychological Sciences and Social
Sciences 53,2 (Mar 1998): S91-S103
Cohort(s): Older Men
ID Number: 3152
Publisher: Gerontological Society of America

The idea of a long and stable career rewarded by retirement is a
fixture of the American social ethos and political economy. The
paradox is that many Americans' careers do not fit this image. Here,
we examined how the structure of the career, as compared to only those
circumstances proximate to retirement, is important for understanding
career endings. Based on labor force histories drawn from the National
Longitudinal Survey of Older Men, we observed that the occupational
roles held through the mid and late career combine additively to
influence retirement and disability experiences, with different
conditions of work coming into play depending on the career stage.
Occupational roles in the mid career also have long-term, indirect
effects, operating through the onset of health problems and the
adequacy of pension benefits. Although retirement and disability are
not hinged to occupational mobility per se, these career endings are
sensitive to major discontinuities in the career and work role in
terms of unemployment and labor force mobility.

------------------------------------------------------


11) http://www.pop.psu.edu/
Population Research Institute (PRI), Penn State
http://athens.pop.psu.edu/allen/WPapersAll.cfm
PRI Working Papers - Complete Listing

http://www.pop.psu.edu/general/pubs/working_papers/psu-pri/wp0103.pdf
March 2001 -- Social Inequalities in Disability-Free Life Expectancy
in the French Male Population, 1980-1991

***** This is a 20-page paper that compares managers, manual workers
and an intermediary occupational group.

------------------------------------------------------


12) http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/
http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/overall/hssh0203.pdf
Health and Safety Statistics Highlights, 2002/03 ? National Statistics

***** This is a 40-page report that gives occupational health statistics.

http://www.healthandsafety-centre.net/cgi-bin/croner/jsp/Editorial.do?cache=true&contentId=99184
Latest occupational health statistics
Published: 19 Nov 2003
The HSC has published the latest statistics on workplace safety,
work-related ill-health and enforcement action in Great Britain,
highlighting the latest trends in relation to occupational health.
(See above report.)

------------------------------------------------------


13) http://hcl.harvard.edu/numericdata/collections/health.html
UNITED STATES HEALTH DATA RESOURCES

***** This is a wonderful site with about a dozen resources for
continuing your investigations in the connection between life
expectancy/mortality and occupations.

------------------------------------------------------


14) http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/review/677work.html
Harvard Public Health Review
Caution: Work Can Be Hazardous to Your Health

------------------------------------------------------


15) http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2003/11/23/losing_hope_in_appalachia/
11/23/2003 -- Losing hope in Appalachia
As the mines shut down, an area's health, and future, declined

------------------------------------------------------


16) http://www.pubpol.duke.edu/centers/ppa/index.html
Program on Population, Policy, and Aging 
http://www.pubpol.duke.edu/search.html

***** You can search the site for articles on life expectancy and
population trends.

http://dukenews.duke.edu/policy/vaupelage.htm
May 9, 2002 -- NO NATURAL LIMIT TO LIFE EXPECTANCY, SAYS DUKE RESEARCHER

***** This is a sample article of the types of research available.

------------------------------------------------------


17) http://www.demographic-research.org/
Demographic Research published by The Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research
Printing and Downloading
As long you are in compliance with our Copyright Notice, you may
download articles for personal use.

***** You can browse by category or search for articles on all aspects
of the demographics of aging and life expectancy.

------------------------------------------------------


18) http://www.mortality.org/
The Human Mortality Database

The Human Mortality Database (HMD) was created to provide detailed
mortality and population data to researchers, students, journalists,
policy analysts, and others interested in the history of human
longevity. The project began as an outgrowth of earlier projects in
the Department of Demography at the University of California,
Berkeley, USA, and at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic
Research in Rostock, Germany (see history). It is the work of three
teams of researchers in the USA, Germany, and Canada (see research
teams), with the help of financial backers and scientific
collaborators from around the world (see acknowledgements).

The main goal of the database is to document the longevity revolution
of the modern era and to facilitate research into its causes and
consequences. We seek to provide open, international access to these
data. At present the database contains detailed data for a collection
of 18 countries.

------------------------------------------------------


19) http://www.tpk.govt.nz/about/default.asp
The Ministry of M?ori Development Act 1991 established Te Puni K?kiri,
the Ministry of M?ori Development in 1992. Currently, Te Puni K?kiri?s
work focuses on providing high quality policy advice to Government and
other agencies. Recently it has also begun providing services to
assist M?ori achieve their development aims.

http://www.tpk.govt.nz/maori/population/default.asp
http://www.tpk.govt.nz/maori/population/women.asp
Mana wahine ? Life Expectancy

http://www.stats.govt.nz/domino/external/web/nzstories.nsf/0/82dfd788a5ad21c1cc256b180004bacf?OpenDocument
Statistics New Zealand - Te Tari Tatau
Life expectancy and death rates

------------------------------------------------------


20) http://www.s-t.com/senior/story1.htm
Life expectancy continues to increase

***** Author of article is author of this book.

http://www.press.uillinois.edu/s01/kausler.html
The Graying of America 
An Encyclopedia of Aging, Health, Mind, and Behavior 
Second Edition 
Donald H. Kausler and Barry C. Kausler 
2001
464 pages. 6 x 9 inches. Smyth-sewn
Cloth, ISBN 0-252-02635-7. $49.95s
Health / Medicine


===============
SEARCH STRATEGY
===============
life expectancy occupations
mortality rate occupations

---

Clarification of Answer by czh-ga on 07 Dec 2003 19:11 PST

Hello cattiec3-ga,

I?m sorry that you?re unhappy about the results of my research. I wish
I could understand what I?ve missed and what other resources you?ve
found that are more pertinent. I?m always eager to learn and improve
my searching skills.

As I said in my answer, the problem of researching correlations
between jobs/professions and life expectancy is that there are a huge
number of variables. This is reflected in many of the sources I
included. As far as the Appalachia article goes, I thought it was a
rather dramatic illustration of this point. The general living
conditions in a community have at least as much to do with life
expectancy as the occupations available in that community.

----------------------------------------
The health of residents in parts of Appalachia has deteriorated so
much that a boy born in McDowell County has a life expectancy lower
than that of babies in 34 of the world's developing nations, among
them some of the most impoverished -- Tajikistan, Colombia, the
Dominican Republic, Mongolia, and Vietnam.

"It's amazing that these places exist in the United States," said
Christopher J. L. Murray, lead author of a 1998 mortality study of US
counties by Harvard School of Public Health and the Centers for
Disease Control. "These are people who have the same set of diseases
and risk factors that much of the rest of the world -- some two to
three billion poor people -- worry about."

At the Culbertson burial site, Widener said he sees common causes
behind many deaths here.

"A lot of it goes back to the quality of medical care," he said. "A
lot of them can't pay bills. Some of it is coal-related, or cancer.
And the young people, it's the lifestyles. . . . People need to take
better care of themselves."
------------------------------------------

I wish you well with your research.

~ czh ~

---

Clarification of Answer by czh-ga on 09 Dec 2003 13:00 PST

Hi cattiec3-ga,

Thanks very much for sharing what you found. To answer your question
"do you have access to a lot of search databases and e-journals?" --
No. I don't. Google Answers researchers are contractors and we mostly
use the open web to find our answers. Some of us work in settings
where we might have access to paid databases but we have to be very
careful about copyrights and proprietary materials.

I also want to alert you to asking for clarifications until you're
satisfied that the answer is all that you want. I'm sorry I wasn't as
much help as you needed and I deeply appreciate the feedback on what
worked for  you.

Wishing you success with you projects.

~ czh ~

This was a pretty good effort. Some of the citations provided were
tenuously linked to the subject, such as the article on Applachia.
While I originally intended for this to lead to the bulk of my
research, I have turned to other resources and found much more
pertinent results. However, perhaps it could just be that the
researcher did not have as clear an idea of what was relevant to my
topic as I did. Thanks for working on the questions.

A commonly-cited longevity/career connection is that orchestra
conductors are unusually long-lived.  The problem with this assertion
and with all similar longevity studies, according to some critics, is
that they confuse correlations with cause-and-effect.  Here is a brief
quote from a larger piece about such "spurious correlations:"

"However, as Carroll (1979) pointed out in a critique of the ["famous
orcheatra conductor"] study, there is a subtle flaw in life-expectancy
comparisons: The calculation of average life expectancy includes
infant deaths along with those of adults who survive for many years.
Because no infant has ever conducted an orchestra, the data from
infant mortalities should be excluded from the comparison standard.
Well, then, what about teenagers? They also are much too young to take
over a major orchestra, so their deaths should also be excluded from
the general average."

Spurious Correlations: William C. Burns (about 7/8 down the page)
http://www.burns.com/wcbspurcorl.htm

markj-ga

To confirm and expand on markj-ga's comment, it is also 
said that orchestra conductors live so long because they
are continually involved in the expression of feelings -
certainly a thought worth pondering. It will be interesting
to see if the jobs in the top 20 list similarly imply the
involvement of such a factor.

This could be of slight interest: 
divorce rate
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=36331

for czh:
This is the research I ultimately used, to give you an idea.
 
1. Armstrong, D.L., Strogatz, D., Barnett, E., & Wang R. (2003) Joint
effects of social
class and community occupational structure on coronary mortality among
black men and white men, upstate New York, 1988-92. Journal of
Epidemiology & Health 57(5), 373-87.

2. Calvert, G.M., Merling, J.W., & Burnett, C.A. (1999) Ischemic Heart Disease 
Mortality and Occupation Among 16-to 60-Year Old Males. Journal of
Occupational and Environmental Medicine 41(11), 960-966.

3. Cohen, R.S., Kamps, C.A., Kokoska, S., Segal, E.M, & Tucker, J.B.
(2000) Life Expectancy of Major League Baseball Umpires. The Physician
and Sportsmedicine 28 (5), 32-40.

4, Gregorio, D.I., Walsh, S.J., & Paturzo, D. (1997) The Effects of
Occupation-Based
Social Position on Mortality in a Large American Cohort. American
Journal of Public Health 87(9), 1472-1475.

5. Kang, H.K., Bullmann, T.A., MacFarlane, G.J., & Gray, G.C.
Mortality among US and UK veterans of the Persian Gulf War: A review.
Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine 59(12), 794-802.

6. Kivimaki, M., Vahtera, J., Virtanen, M., Elovainio, M., Pentti, J.,
& Ferrie, J. (2003) Temporary Employment and Risk of Overall and
Cause-specific Mortality. American Journal of Epidemiology 158(7),
663-668.

7. Kunst, A. et al. (1999) Occupational Class and Ischemic Heart
Disease Mortality in the United States and 11 European Countries.
American Journal of Public Health 89(1), 47-53.

8. Kunst, A. et al. (1998) Mortality by Occupational Class Among Men
30-64 Years in 11 European Countries. Social Science & Medicine
46(11), 1459-1476.

9. Martikainen, P.T., & Valkonen, T. (1998) The Effects of
Differential Unemployment Rate Increases of Occupation Groups on
Changes in Mortality. American Journal of Public Health 88(12),
1859-1861.

10. Son, M., Armstrong, B., Choi J-M, & Yoon, T-Y. (2002) Relation of
occupational class and education with mortality in Korea. Journal of
Epidemiology & Community Health 56(10), 798-799.

11. Sorlie, P.D., Backlund, E., & Keller, J. (1995) US Mortality by Economic, 
Demographic, and Social Characteristics: The National Longitudinal
Mortality Study. American Journal of Public Health 85(7), 949-956.

12. Surles, K.B., Gizlice, Z., Buescher, P.A., & Martin R.D. (1999)
Occupational Mortality Among Working-Age North Carolinians 1988-97.
SCHS Studies (No. 115).

13. Surles, K.B., Gizlice, Z., & Buescher, P.A. (1999) Using Death
Certificates to Target Occupation Groups for Health Promotion and
Disease Screening in North Carolina. SCHS Studies (No. 117).

As a researcher, do you have access to a lot of search databases and
e-journals? As a University student, I have a vast amount of resources
to find journal articles and I assumed you had the same, but I was
just thinking that maybe you didn't?