Tora Husar

Much attention is given to life before death, but transition after death also has a significant impact. Modern methods of transition such as burial, entombment, cremation, and donation of the body all harbor as-of-yet unrecorded effects upon air pollution, land use, and greenhouse gas emissions. This project aims to quantify and assess the 244,866 transitions that occurred in Minnesota from 2013 to 2018, inclusive. We hypothesized a general increase in cremation, paralleling national trends. This study identified correlations between demographics and transition types; we found that in Minnesota, older, female decedents were more likely to die in a nursing home and be buried rather than cremated. In contrast, younger, male decedents were more likely to be married at the time of death, to die at home, and to be cremated rather than buried. In general, there was a correlation between a burial transition and the decedent having resided in rural counties; cremation was more common for those residing in counties that were urban, voted Democratic, and had a higher socioeconomic class, apart from a few far-northern counties.