Veterans’ Grandchildren Mortality Plus: Vital Records, Census and Draft Cards Across Three Generations

The Veterans’ Grandchildren Mortality Plus sample consists of the records of more than 35,700 total grandchildren<br>both male and female in nearly equal numbers,about 28,000 of which survived to age 45,who were born after the war to 16,791 children of 2,825 veterans,and contains an oversample of ex-POW veterans.The primary purpose of the project was to explore how grandfathers’ trauma affects the longevity and overweight of descendants. <br>The dataset contains birth and death dates of grandchildren, census information on their parents' household, select socioeconomic and education information from the 1930 and 1940 census, and height and weight information from WWII draft cards for the grandsons. This multigenerational dataset can be used for researching the intergenerational transmission of longevity, overweight and socioeconomic status and the sex-specific pathways of this transmission and for testing mechanical linkage algorithms. <br>Researchers built on a previously collected NIA-funded project containing census and death information of children of ex-POW and non-POW veterans (“Early Indicators, Intergenerational Processes, and Aging,” NIA grant P01AG10120, PI: Costa). The Veterans’ Grandchildren Mortality Plus data set contains the newly collected records of the veterans’ grandchildren, as well as the previously collected data of the veterans and their children.