Vital and Health Statistics, Series 2, Number 148. The Validity of Race and Hispanic Origin Reporting on Death Certificates in the United States. Data Evaluation and Methods Research.

摘要

This report presents the results of an evaluation study of the validity of race and Hispanic origin reporting on death certificates in the United States and its impact on race-and Hispanic origin-specific mortality estimates. The National Longitudinal Mortality Study (NLMS) was used to evaluate death certificate classification of race and Hispanic origin by comparing death certificate with survey race-ethnicity classifications for a sample of decedents identified in NLMS. NLMS consists of a series of annual Current Population Survey files (1973 and 1978-1998) linked to death certificates for years 1979-1998. To identify and measure the effect of race-ethnicity misclassification on death certificates on mortality estimates, pooled 1999-2001 vital statistics mortality dataand population data from the 2000 census were used to estimate and compare observed and corrected (for death certificate misclassification) race-ethnicity specific death rates.