Zarulli Virginia
Max Planck Odense Center on the Biodemography of Aging and Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Biodemography, University of Southern Denmark, J.B. Winsløws Vej 9, 5000 Odense, Denmark.
Eur J Popul. 2016 Jan 25;32(1):55-72. doi: 10.1007/s10680-015-9361-1. eCollection 2016 Feb.
The concepts of unobserved frailty and selection have been extensively analyzed with respect to phenomena like mortality deceleration at old ages and mortality convergence or cross overs between populations (for example American black and white populations, men and women). Despite the long-time observation of converging mortality risks in differential socioeconomic mortality research, the interest in the connection between frailty, selection, and health and mortality inequalities over a life course approach has increased only recently. This overview of the literature summarizes the main concepts of unobserved frailty and socioeconomic differences in mortality and how frailty and selection relate to these differences at old ages. It then reviews the evidence coming from the existing studies. Although the number of studies is still limited, the body of research on unobserved frailty and socioeconomic inequalities in health and mortality in a life course approach is growing. The results, however, are contradictory, and whether selection plays a major role in shaping the observed socioeconomic mortality patterns at old ages is still controversial.
未观察到的脆弱性和选择的概念已针对诸如老年死亡率减速以及不同人群（例如美国黑人和白人、男性和女性）之间的死亡率趋同或交叉等现象进行了广泛分析。尽管在不同社会经济死亡率研究中对趋同的死亡风险进行了长期观察，但直到最近，人们才越来越关注基于生命历程方法的脆弱性、选择与健康及死亡率不平等之间的联系。这篇文献综述总结了未观察到的脆弱性和死亡率的社会经济差异的主要概念，以及脆弱性和选择在老年时如何与这些差异相关联。然后回顾了现有研究的证据。尽管研究数量仍然有限，但基于生命历程方法对未观察到的脆弱性以及健康和死亡率方面的社会经济不平等的研究正在不断增加。然而，研究结果相互矛盾，而且选择在塑造观察到的老年社会经济死亡率模式中是否起主要作用仍存在争议。
