It examines epidemiologic evidence on some of the major mechanisms expected to create a linkage between childhood and adult mortality and reviews demographic and epidemiologic studies for evidence of the hypothesized linkages. Other potential mechanisms include persistent viruses, dietary practices, and the burden of infectious diseases in childhood. Many empirical studies support the notion that childhood conditions play a major role in adult mortality, but only in the case of respiratory tuberculosis has the demographic importance of a specific mechanism been established by cohort studies. One's date and place of birth also appear to be persistently associated with risks of adult death in a wide variety of circumstances. An individual's height, perhaps the single best indicator of nutritional and disease environment in childhood, has recently been linked to adult mortality, especially from cardiovascular diseases.
Further research is needed, however, before causal mechanisms can be identified.
The purpose of this paper is to fill a gap in the demographic literature by reviewing previous fiscal studies of immigration in the United States. Each study is introduced by describing the data it uses, the methodologies employed in calculating costs and revenues, and the resulting estimates of fiscal consequences. Evaluative comments are also stressed. Since the 1950 US census, demographic methods based on the fundamental balancing equation of demography have played an important role in the evaluation of the census net undercount. Although results of demographic analysis are readily available in Bureau of the Census publications, the procedures used to estimate each of the components of population change are less well-known.