Life Course as Medium

The life course as developmental theory.

The pioneering longitudinal studies of child development (all launched in the 1920s and 1930s) were extended well beyond childhood. Indeed, they eventually followed their young study members up to the middle years and later life. In doing so, they generated issues that could not be addressed satisfactorily by available theories. These include the recognition that individual lives are influenced...

Considering life course concepts.

I N limning the etymology of the concept of the life course, Alwin makes a number of prime points and paves the way toward further conceptual development. For me, one of the more prominent takeaway messages is that there is no standard model—to borrow a phrase from particle physics. He makes clear that life course analysis is not an exact science, and, sticking with the same analogy for a bit l...

Life Course Indicator: Suicide

Notes on calculation: The ICD-10 codes denoting suicide are X60X84, Y87.0, and U03. In the NVSS mortality data set, the ICD-10 codes have been grouped into 39 underlying causes of death, one of which is suicide and can be used to calculate this indicator. Because the suicide rate for people under 10 is very small and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) WISQARS system only provi...

Life Course, Environment Change, and Life Span

Life Course Indicator: Preterm Birth

As MCH programs begin to develop new programming guided by a life course framework, measures are needed to determine the success of their approaches. In response to the need for standardized metrics for the life course approach, AMCHP launched a project designed to identify and promote a set of indicators that can be used to measure progress using the life course approach to improve maternal an...