Iliya Gutin, Syracuse University

About the Presentation

Research on U.S. population health emphasizes the importance of both national- and state-level contexts as determinants of life expectancy, yet these two perspectives are rarely considered jointly in empirical analyses of mortality trends. We introduce and evaluate the concept of countries’ “capacity for population health” as a simple but effective model for understanding how intranational and international contexts intersect to impact health, focusing on the contribution of the COVID-19 pandemic to diverging trends in life expectancy between U.S. states, peer countries, and subnational regions therein. Drawing on state-level U.S. vital statistics data, national-level data for 19 high-income countries, and regional-level data for Canada, France, and Spain, we show that all U.S. states have fallen far behind international peers, both before and during COVID-19, largely mirroring the U.S. national mean. Critically, our results highlight the importance of situating within-U.S. comparisons of health in an international context, as the United States’ limited capacity for population health relative to its international peers overemphasizes the significance of state-level differences.

About the Speaker

Iliya Gutin is a Research Assistant Professor at the Maxwell School of Citizenship & Public Affairs at Syracuse University. He is a social demographer of population health, studying the many individual, institutional, and contextual level determinants of morbidity and mortality, as well as a medical sociologist, interested in better understanding and evaluating the conceptualization and measurement of health. His current work addresses international and intranational variation in health, using both vital statistics and survey data to understand poor and declining health in the United States throughout the life course. 

Seminar Format

Location IN PERSON: 2208 LeFrak Hall. We are requesting advanced registration so that we can track capacity.  Please use this link to RSVP for in-person attendance.

Location ONLINE VIA ZOOM: Zoom Registration Link.  Upon registration, you will receive an automatically generated email with the direct link for the seminar.

If accommodations are needed, please send request to meeting organizer (mprc-support@umd.edu) at least 72 hours prior to the event, if possible, to allow time to discuss and implement alternatives.

COVID-19 Information

MPRC public events for Fall 2025 will be a mix of in person and online via Zoom.  For in person events, all event attendees must follow current protocols.