Collaborative Research: Factors Affecting Ethnic Differences in Adult Mortality

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This is a study of ethnic differences in adult mortality. It will employ demographic conceptual and methodological approaches to accomplish three main research goals both for cause-specific and multiple-cause mortality. First, it will develop a more comprehensive model relating risk factors to ethnic mortality differentials than has heretofore been presented. Second, the work will broaden the range of ethnic categories typically found in mortality studies. Third, it will employ a unique data base that links detailed demographic, socioeconomic, family structure, health, and behavioral factors to mortality of ethnic groups. The specific aims of the project are to: (1) Assemble and adapt an integral, prospective database that will permit simultaneous examination of demographic and socioeconomic background factors, family structure, health behaviors, and health history factors in an analysis of ethnic variations in adult mortality by cause of death. (2) Broaden the range of ethnic categories typically found in mortality studies to include Mexican, Native, African, Asian, and Caucasian Americans. (3) Uncover why some ethnic groups, notably African Americans, experience relatively high mortality risk from circulatory diseases. (4) Reveal why African Americans suffer disproportionately high rates of cancer mortality. (5) Show why respiratory disease mortality is disproportionately high among Caucasian Americans. (6) Illuminate why Mexican, Native, and African Americans exhibit relatively high rates of diabetes mortality. (7) Illustrate why Mexican, Native, and African Americans die at relatively high rates from social pathologies. (8) Extend the cause of death analysis to include both underlying and multiple causes of death. (9) Account for variations in ethnic mortality patterns by sex and age groupings. (10) Use continuous-time hazard rate models, which allow a multivariate examination of the risk of death by ethnic group. The ethnic differences in mortality that have so long persisted i n the U.S. represent a troubling and challenging question. While mortality differences between groups are continually better-documented, particularly between African and Caucasian Americans, the explanation of differences has been weak, particularly when numerous ethnic groups are compared. For example, so little is known about Mexican American mortality that their favorable mortality rates are often termed an "epidemiological paradox." Even less is known about the differing cause patterns of death exhibited by Asian and Native Americans. Thus, the principal purpose of this research is to explain ethnic differences in cause-specific mortality, using a model that relates demographic, socioeconomic, family structure, behavioral, and health history factors to both underlying and multiple cause mortality differentials. A more comprehensive and more specific model will make it easier to identify key areas where social programs, public policy, medical treatment, and future research can have the most beneficial effects.