Racial Differences in Life Expectancy Among Elderly African Americans and Whites: The Surprising Truth About Comparisons

By: Laura B. Shrestha

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Synopsis: First published in 1997. This book is based on the author’s dissertation written while a student in the Population Studies Center of the University of Pennsylvania. The catalyst for the research was the recognition that major uncertainties exist about the quality of population and death data for the elderly in the United States as a result of coverage and content errors in the censuses and death registration. Furthermore, different patterns appear to exist for the two major racial groupings in the United States: whites and African- Americans. The book evaluates the consistency of reported data between the two major sources of data for calculation of mortality statistics in the United States: censuses and death registration. The focus is on the older population (aged 60 and above), where mortality trends have the greatest impact on social programs and where data quality is most problematic.