Cosmo Strozza, Virginia Zarulli, and Viviana Egidi of the Interdisciplinary Centre on Population Dynamics (University of Southern Denmark) and University of Rome “La Sapienza” analysed the 90+ population in Denmark to study how demographics, socio-economic characteristics and one’s lifestyle affect changes in physical and cognitive health, whether there is a pattern to these changes and how physical or cognitive aspects affect transitions of the other dimensions.

Because of the time lag between the act of smoking and dying from smoking, and because males generally take up smoking before females do, male and female smoking epidemiology often follows a typical double wave pattern dubbed the ‘smoking epidemic’. Research from Maarten Wensink (CPop) et al. aimed to answer the questions: How are male and female deaths from this epidemic differentially progressing in high-income regions on a cohort-by-age basis? How have they affected male-female survival differences?

Does the balance of "nature" and "nurture" depend on whether you grew up in a society with high or low social mobility?In a recent study in PNAS, Per Engzell and Felix Tropf explore the roles of family of origin and genetics on educational attainment. 

Gergő Baranyi and colleagues used data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) to assess longitudinal associations of neighbourhood nuisances and access to services with depression among older European adults. They found that those exposed to neighbourhood nuisances had a 36 per cent increased chance of developing depression.

The growing demand for long-term care (LTC) and its adequate provision is one of the challenges of societies facing population ageing. The majority of care work in Europe is provided by family members and this demanding task can be a stressful experience for the person giving care. In a recent study, Melanie Wagner and Martina Brandt questioned whether the availability of regional formal care could contribute to improve the wellbeing of caregivers.