Demographic, Socioeconomic, and Behavioral Factors Affecting Ethnic Mortality by Cause

Abstract

This article examines ethnic differences in total and cause-specific mortality. We employ the linked National Health Interview Survey-National Death Index (NHIS-NDI) to examine ethnic differences in mortalityfrom a combination of demographic, socioeconomic, and health characteristic perspectives. Wefind that Asian American mortality is low in part because of healthy behaviors and socioeconomic advantages; that Caucasian American mortality is higher partly because of high prevalence and quantity of cigarette smoking; and that Mexican, Native, and African American mortality is higher partly from socioeconomic disadvantages. These results give us added insight into the demographic, social, and health mechanisms that lead us to persevere or to perish. Most mortality research has focused on how demographic characteristics - age, sex, and ethnicity - affect total and cause-specific mortality. But to properly conceptualize the multiple and interacting proximate determinants of mortality by ethnicity, researchers must extend the traditional demographic framework of mortality analysis to a more complete, though more complex, multivariate model that also incorporates social characteristics - marital status, education, and income (see Mosley & Chen 1984; Rosenwaike 1988). Moreover, health behaviors have cultural dimensions and therefore can also affect ethnic differences in mortality. A new file, the linked National Health Interview Survey-National Death Index (NHIS-NDI), allows us to disentangle some of the effects of demographic, socioeconomic, and behavioral health characteristics on ethnic differences in total and cause-specific mortality.