Cohort Morbidity Hypothesis: Health Inequalities of Older Māori and non-Māori in New Zealand.

This paper describes the mortality trends from 1948 to 2008 between Māori and non-Māori populations. Using the cohort morbidity hypothesis, we propose that health disparities between the populations can be partially explained by different levels of early-life exposure to infectious diseases. We conducted regression analysis and found strong associations between early- and old-age mortality for cohorts. Childhood mortality, rather than mid-life mortality, accounted for greater variance in older age. The mortality trend of the 1948 Māori birth cohort is similar to the 1902 non-Māori birth cohort 46 years earlier. Implications are discussed.