title: Educational achievement recorded on certificates of death compared with self-report.
abstract: This study reports the agreement of educational achievement obtained from death certificates with self-report among 249 persons. Education was categorized as: less than high school, high school education, and greater than high school education. The overall agreement rate was 84%. Death certificates provided a slight underestimation of educational achievement. The sensitivity and specificity of the death certificate in classifying a decedent as having less than a high school education were both 90%. Educational achievement determined from death certificates has substantial validity, and any misclassification that may occur is likely to be similar across ethnicity and gender groups.
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA.
authors.forename: W D
authors.initials: WD
authors.lastname: Rosamond
authors.forename: H A
authors.initials: HA
authors.lastname: Tyroler
authors.forename: L E
authors.initials: LE
authors.lastname: Chambless
authors.forename: A R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Folsom
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Cooper
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Conwill
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D015982:Bias; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003644:Death Certificates; D004522:Educational Status; D005006:Ethnicity; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012307:Risk Factors; D012650:Self Disclosure; D012737:Sex Factors; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014481:United States