Race, Flourishing, and All-Cause Mortality in the United States, 1995–2016.

Louie, Patricia, Laura Upenieks, Arjumand Siddiqi, David R. Williams, and David T. Takeuchi. 2021. “Race, Flourishing, and All-Cause Mortality in the United States, 1995–2016.” American Journal of Epidemiology.

This study assessed whether race moderates the association between flourishing and all-cause mortality. We used panel data from the Midlife in the United States Study (MIDUS) (19952016) (n = 2851). Approximately 19% of White respondents and 23% of Black respondents of the baseline sample died over the course of the 21-year study period (n = 564). Cox proportional hazard models showed that Blacks had a higher mortality rate relative to Whites and higher levels of flourishing were associated with a lower mortality rate. Furthermore, a significant interaction between flourishing and race in predicting mortality was observed. Blacks with higher levels of flourishing had a mortality rate that was not significantly different from Whites. However, Blacks, but not Whites, with low flourishing scores had a higher mortality rate. As such, health promotion efforts focused on enhancing flourishing among Black populations may reduce the Black-White gap in mortality.

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