NATIONAL AFRICAN-AMERICAN MORTALITY ANALYSIS

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The twentieth century has witnessed a great expansion in the upper limits of human life. At the turn of the century the average life expectancy at birth in the United States was only 47 years old. Since then average human life expectancy has risen to excess of seventy years old. And, it is now not unusual for humans to reach eighty years of age or older. However, black life expectancy has lagged behind white life expectancy for as many years as race specific records have been collected. In fact, in some recent years there have been declines in Black life expectancy. In spite of well documented findings of excess deaths in African Americans there is a paucity of knowledge regarding the behavioral and social determinants of longevity in Blacks or the existence of race differences in the effects of predictors of longevity. This proposal outlines a project to assess race differences in the effects of known longevity correlates in two national samples, the National Survey of Black Americans and the National Health Interview Survey, Supplement on Aging. There are three specific aims: 1. To track respondents and obtain data on twelve year survival patterns among the respondents from the 1979 National Survey of Black Americans (NSBA). 2. To examine race differences in the effects of social integration on mortality. 3. To examine race differences in the effects of socioeconomic status on mortality.