Data quality and adjusted Hispanic mortality in the United States, 1989-1991.
OBJECTIVE
Hispanics appear to live longer compared to other ethnic groups in the United States. Our main objective was to determine whether data quality biases mortality statistics. We calculated the impact of misclassification of ethnicity on death certificates in order to create adjusted mortality estimates.


METHODS
We used the National Mortality Follow-Back Survey of 1993 (NMFS) for our assessment of ethnicity misclassification. We then created misclassification estimates for 10-year age-sex groups, and used these to correct mortality estimates for 1989-1991.


RESULTS
The overall predictive value positive (PV+) and sensitivity were 0.981 and 0.805, respectively, for men; and 0.994 and 0.902, respectively, for women. Age-specific adjustment for misclassification on death rates caused Hispanic male life expectancy to go from a 1.01 year advantage over White non-Hispanics, to a 1.83 year deficit, with a similar pattern found for females.


CONCLUSIONS
The apparent Hispanic advantage in life expectancy is influenced by misclassification of ethnicity. Misclassification of ethnicity on death certificates biases Hispanic mortality downward, thereby falsely inflating life expectancy.
Center for Demography and Ecology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin 53705, USA. kswallen@ssc.wisc.edu
Karen
K
Swallen
Abdelhani
A
Guend
D003644:Death Certificates; D005189:False Positive Reactions; D005260:Female; D006630:Hispanic or Latino / Q000145:classification / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D008017:Life Expectancy / Q000208:ethnology*; D015993:Life Tables; D008297:Male; D009026:Mortality; D011786:Quality Control; D014481:United States