sbh4th
commented
7 years ago Hey Corinne- Glad you flagged this, as it is a perennial issue when dealing with age-specific death rates for blacks and whites. I’d just add that the Elo/Preston analysis is a little dated now, and we should probably have a look at more recent papers on this, as I think I have seen a few.
For example, this recent analysis of linked datasets (via NHIS) still show some evidence of crossover: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28461712 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28461712
“Mortality rates among black individuals exceed those of white individuals throughout much of the life course. The black–white disparity in mortality rates is widest in young adulthood, and then rates converge with increasing age until a crossover occurs at about age 85 years, after which black older adults exhibit a lower mortality rate relative to white older adults. Data quality issues in survey-linked mortality studies may hinder accurate estimation of this disparity and may even be responsible for the observed black–white mortality crossover, especially if the linkage of surveys to death records during mortality follow-up is less accurate for black older adults. This study assesses black–white differences in the linkage of the 1986–2009 National Health Interview Survey to the National Death Index through 2011 and the implications of racial/ethnic differences in record linkage for mortality disparity estimates. Match class and match score (i.e., indicators of linkage quality) differ by race/ethnicity, with black adults exhibiting less certain matches than white adults in all age groups. The magnitude of the black–white mortality disparity varies with alternative linkage scenarios, but convergence and crossover continue to be observed in each case. Beyond black–white differences in linkage quality, this study also identifies declines over time in linkage quality and even eligibility for linkage among all adults. Although linkage quality is lower among black adults than white adults, differential record linkage does not account for the black–white mortality crossover..”
Regarding Elo/Preston:
“Most notably, Preston and colleagues (1996) suggested that adjusting for poorer data quality among black older adults relative to white older adults eliminates the crossover. Instead, results from the relaxed scenario resemble those of Hill et al. (2000) and Lynch et al. (2003), who found that after adjusting for data quality issues, the crossover remains but occurs at a later age than found using unadjusted data. “
Anyway, more to think about.
Sam
On May 25, 2017, at 9:03 AM, Corinne Riddell notifications@github.com wrote:
For most states, you'll notice that the contribution of age to the LE gap becomes negative in the oldest age band. reference: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK109843/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK109843/ Why? -poor vital statis quality, especially for Blacks. Misreporting of age because many births were never registered. "The unreliability of age data for older African Americans undoubtedly reflects the fact that many of their births were never registered. Most were born in the South, where few states were members of the birth-registration area before 1920" -age reported on death certificate was often much lower than that reported on the census. much lower inconsistency rate for whites. -"Corrections for age discrepancies in the two sources led to only relatively small changes in the white rates at older ages but substantially increased estimated death rates for nonwhites."
-also: "More recent evidence of inconsistencies in vital statistics and census data come from evaluations of intercensal changes in cohort size and intercensal deaths. These results for each of the intercensal decades from 1930-1940 to 1980-1990 show increasing amounts of inconsistency between vital statistics and census data for African Americans as age advances (Elo and Preston, 1994). Mortality rates based on these data are likely to be highly unreliable"
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corinne-riddell
For most states, you'll notice that the contribution of age to the LE gap becomes negative in the oldest age band. reference: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK109843/
Why? -poor vital statis quality, especially for Blacks. Misreporting of age because many births were never registered. "The unreliability of age data for older African Americans undoubtedly reflects the fact that many of their births were never registered. Most were born in the South, where few states were members of the birth-registration area before 1920" -age reported on death certificate was often much lower than that reported on the census. much lower inconsistency rate for whites. -"Corrections for age discrepancies in the two sources led to only relatively small changes in the white rates at older ages but substantially increased estimated death rates for nonwhites."
-also: "More recent evidence of inconsistencies in vital statistics and census data come from evaluations of intercensal changes in cohort size and intercensal deaths. These results for each of the intercensal decades from 1930-1940 to 1980-1990 show increasing amounts of inconsistency between vital statistics and census data for African Americans as age advances (Elo and Preston, 1994). Mortality rates based on these data are likely to be highly unreliable"