Main description:

The development of health across an individual's life depends on many factors, but social determinants play a vital role. This timely Handbook simultaneously uses theoretical, descriptive, explanatory and policy approaches to explore health inequalities related to income, education, occupational status, social capital, and also biologic and genetic factors.

World- leading experts define and present the most prominent research topics, perspectives, and findings in the field and pose critical questions from within and beyond the research community. Structured into five parts this handbook addresses theories, methods, single stages of the life course, long-term perspectives on the whole life course, and policies. It helps readers understand the complexity ohofff health sociology while also investigating important mechanisms and solutions through which health inequalities can be reduced.

Providing a comprehensive, multi- and interdisciplinary analysis of topics and approaches to health inequalities, this Handbook will be an inspiring resource for researchers seeking to expand their knowledge and tackle new research questions. Advanced students of sociology, demography, epidemiology, public health and related fields will also benefit.

Contents:

Contents:

Preface xi
1 Introduction to the Handbook of Health Inequalities Across the Life
Course: a societal problem and a source for interdisciplinary research 1
Rasmus Hoffmann

PART I THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO HEALTH
INEQUALITIES ACROSS THE LIFE COURSE
2 Sociology of the life course and its implications for health inequalities 15
Karl Ulrich Mayer
3 Cumulative dis/advantage processes, nutrition transition, and global
metabolic disparities: interrogating the cohort-policy linkage 32
Jessica A. Kelley, Abolade Oladimeji and Dale Dannefer
4 Economic theories of health inequality across the life course 46
Titus J. Galama and Hans van Kippersluis
5 Health as a consequence of genetic variation, gene transcription and life
course experiences 59
Martin Diewald

PART II METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES FOR THE LONGITUDINAL
ANALYSIS OF HEALTH INEQUALITIES
6 Methods for studying life course health inequalities 75
Scott M. Lynch and Christina Kamis
7 Causal inference based on non-experimental data in health inequality research 93
Michael Gebel
8 Predictive machine learning approaches - possibilities and limitations
for the future of life course research 112
Hannes Kroeger
9 Instrumental variables in studies of health and health inequalities 127
Rasmus Hoffmann and Gabriele Doblhammer

PART III MECHANISMS AND EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FOR
HEALTH INEQUALITIES AT STAGES OF THE LIFE COURSE
10 Health inequalities in adolescence and their consequences for
(emerging) adulthood 145
Marie Bernard, Kristina Winter, and Irene Moor
11 Social inequalities, social capital, and health inequalities in the process
of growing up 159
Andreas Klocke and Sven Stadtmu ller
12 Work and health inequalities 171
Johannes Siegrist
13 Family relations and health inequalities: grandparents and grandchildren 187
Valeria Bordone, Giorgio Di Gessa and Karsten Hank
14 The effects of retirement on health and mortality by socio-economic group 202
Matthias Giesecke
15 Health inequalities in older age: the role of socioeconomic resources
and social networks in context 214
Martina Brandt, Nekehia T. Quashie and Alina Schmitz

PART IV LONG-TERM PERSPECTIVES ON THE DEVELOPMENT
OF HEALTH INEQUALITIES ACROSS LIFE COURSE STAGES
16 Early childhood origins of modern social class health disparities 232
Alberto Palloni, Daniel Ramirez and Sebastian Daza
17 The long arm hypothesis: childhood poverty, epigenetic ageing, and
late-life health in America, Britain, and Europe 251
Gindo Tampubolon
18 Childhood conditions and health later in life: examples from Sweden 273
Serhiy Dekhtyar and Stefan Fors
19 The influence of early health on educational and socioeconomic outcomes 290
Marco Cozzani and Juho Harkoenen
20 Divergence and convergence: how health inequalities evolve as we age 305
Johan Fritzell and Johan Rehnberg
21 Environmental inequality and health outcomes over the life course 325
Christian Koenig and Jan Paul Heisig
22 Infectious diseases across the life course: an inequalities perspective 347
Nico Dragano

PART V POLICY PERSPECTIVES AND EMPIRICAL
EVALUATIONS OF INTERVENTIONS AGAINST HEALTH
INEQUALITIES
23 Policy, inequity, and the life course in the US 366
Sarah Petry
24 The role of Social Protection Policies in reducing health inequalities 382
Amanda Aronsson, Hande Tugrul, Clare Bambra and Terje Andreas Eikemo

Index