The effects of wealth, occupation, and immigration on epidemic mortality from selected infectious diseases and epidemics in Holyoke township, Massachusetts, 1850–1912

BACKGROUND: Previous research suggests individual-level socioeconomic circumstances and resources may be especially salient influences on mortality within the broader context of social, economic, and environmental factors affecting urban 19th century mortality. OBJECTIVE: We sought to test individual-level socioeconomic effects on mortality from infectious and often epidemic diseases in the context of an emerging New England industrial mill town. METHOD: We analyze mortality data from comprehensive death records and a sample of death records linked to census data, for an emergent industrial New England town, to analyze infectious mortality and model socioeconomic effects using Poisson rate regression. RESULTS: Despite our expectations that individual resources might be especially salient in the harsh mortality setting of a crowded, rapidly growing, emergent, industrial mill town with high levels of impoverishment, infectious mortality was not significantly lowered by individual socio-economic status or resources.