title: Underestimation of cardiovascular disease mortality among Maine American Indians: the role of procedural and data errors.
abstract: We collaborated with Maine American Indian tribes to evaluate racial coding on death certificates and the effects of coding errors on estimation of cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality. Lists of tribal decedents were matched to death certificates; 38.5% were misclassified (17.8% coding errors; 20.7% data entry errors). After errors were corrected, CVD mortality trends were similar between American Indians and all Maine residents. Racial misclassification occurred during a period when budget cuts had prompted procedural changes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Services, Bureau of Health, Augusta, ME 04333, USA. judith.graber@maine.gov <judith.graber@maine.gov>
authors.forename: Judith M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Graber
authors.forename: Brenda E
authors.initials: BE
authors.lastname: Corkum
authors.forename: Nancy
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Sonnenfeld
authors.forename: Paul L
authors.initials: PL
authors.lastname: Kuehnert
mesh_terms: D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000401:mortality*; D003644:Death Certificates; D006801:Humans; D007198:Indians, North American / Q000145:classification*; D008281:Maine; D011786:Quality Control; D012042:Registries; D015203:Reproducibility of Results