title: The influence of early conditions on health status among elderly Puerto Ricans.
abstract: The demographic origins of aging in Puerto Rican and other Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries may have important implications for the profile of health status and mortality of elderly people. For this article we tested a general conjecture about the relation between early childhood conditions and adult health status among Puerto Rican elderly using a rich data set recently collected through an island-wide survey (N = 4,293). We examined the association between markers of early nutritional status, self-reports of health and on socioeconomic conditions during early childhood, and the prevalence of 3 conditions during adult ages: obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases. Although we found that obesity and diabetes are associated with markers of early malnutrition, that heart disease is associated with early deprivations and selected early childhood conditions, the evidence we were able to tease out from the data provides only fragile support for the conjecture.
authors.affiliation: Center for Demography and Ecology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706, USA. palloni@ssc.wisc.edu
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Palloni
authors.forename: Mary
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: McEniry
authors.forename: Ana Luisa
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Dávila
authors.forename: Alberto García
authors.initials: AG
authors.lastname: Gurucharri
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003920:Diabetes Mellitus / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D016013:Likelihood Functions; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009026:Mortality; D009752:Nutritional Status; D009765:Obesity / Q000453:epidemiology; D015995:Prevalence; D011647:Puerto Rico / Q000453:epidemiology; D012307:Risk Factors; D012923:Social Class; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology