Seminar Series: Benjamin Capistrant, Epidemiology and Community Health, University of Minnesota
When |
Mar 02, 2015
from 12:00 PM to 01:00 PM |
---|---|
Where | 1101 Morrill Hall |
Contact Name | Tiffany Pittman |
Contact Phone | 301-405-6403 |
Attendees |
Luoman Bao Nicole Bedera Jacob Bueno de Mesqmita Feinia Chen Melissa Chua Jennifer Guida Jonathan Jackson Joan Kahn Zhiyong Lin Sal Luo Sangeetha Madhavan Sara Mosher Bianna Murray Tyler Myroniuk Amanda Nguyen Stephanie Rennane Basheer M. Saeed Liana Sayer Mahesh Somashekhar Shengwei Sun Elizabeth Sully Andrew Williams Yeats Ye |
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About the Talk
A few recent studies have shown spousal caregiving to be associated with a decreased mortality risk. However, the main hypothesized mechanisms to explain this association (healthy worker selection bias into caregiving roles and psychosocial benefits of altruism) have not been well tested empirically. I assessed the association between spousal caregiving (>=14 care hours / week) and all-cause mortality using data from the Health and Retirement Study between 2000-2012. I used a stabilized inverse-probability-weighted marginal structural model, specifically a logistic model, to estimate the odds of caregiving on morality. After accounting for both healthy worker selection bias and mediation by altruism, the controlled direct effect of spousal caregiving was a significant, reduced odds of mortality; this was true after accounting for psychosocial mediators, for long-term caregivers, and robust to a sensitivity analysis. Neither health worker selection bias nor psychosocial mediation can fully account for spousal caregiving being associated with lower odds of mortality.
About the Speaker
Ben Capistrant is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Epidemiology & Community Health at the University of Minnesota and a member of the Minnesota Population Center. Previously, he was a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Carolina Population Center at University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, and completed Masters and Doctoral training in social epidemiology at Harvard University.
His research focuses on social determinants of aging and non-communicable diseases, both in the U.S., and in low- and middle-income countries. He is particularly interested in the interplay between family dynamics and health in old age. He is also interested in how social factors like race / ethnicity and education are associated with health outcomes like disability and cardiovascular disease.
Visit Professor Capistrant's webpage
Please note that, at the present time, Morrill Hall is not accessible for handicapped individuals.