Mortality rates of elderly Asian American populations based on medicare and social security data

Abstract

We present sex- and age-specific death probabilities for the elderly of six Asian American subgroups--Chinese, Filipino, Indian, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese--based on data from social Security Administration files. We determined ethnicity by combining race, place of birth, surname, and given name. The data source and ethnic determination are the same for deaths and the population at risk, avoiding the problem of noncomparability present when data for the numerator come from vital records and data for the denominator come from census records. We found that death rates for elderly Asian Americans are lower than those for whites, and that socioeconomic differences between subgroups do not translate into like differences in mortality.

Ethnic Inequalities in Mortality: The Case of Arab-Americans

“…These findings are also surprising when contrasted with findings regarding mortality among other ethnic minority groups in the US, such as Hispanic-Americans [36], [37] and Asian-Americans [38] that have demonstrated advantages in life expectancy and all-cause mortality relative to Whites.…”

Life Expectancy Among U.S.-born and Foreign-born Older Adults in the United States: Estimates From Linked Social Security and Medicare Data

“…Elo et al (2004) found lower mortality at ages 65+ during the period 1980–1989 among Hispanics born in Cuba, Mexico, and selected other foreign countries than among U.S.-born Hispanics. Lauderdale and Kestenbaum (2002) found lower mortality in the 1990s among six Asian subgroups (Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, Vietnamese) than among non-Hispanic whites.…”

“…The Numident file is a record of all applications and re-applications for a Social Security number and card, and provides information on country of birth and dates of Social Security card applications. The Medicare data linked to Social Security records have been used in several studies to estimate mortality at older ages in the United States (Dupre et al 2012; Elo et al 2004; Kestenbaum and Ferguson 2002; Lauderdale and Kestenbaum 2002; Preston et al 1996; Turra and Elo 2008). …”

“…Linked Social Security and Medicare files represent another source of data (Dupre et al 2012; Elo et al 2004; Kestenbaum 1997; Kestenbaum and Ferguson 2002; Lauderdale and Kestenbaum 2002; Turra and Elo 2008). Key strengths of these linked files include (1) their nearly full national coverage of those ages 65+, permitting an analysis of smaller subpopulations, and (2) the fact that information on both deaths and person-years of exposure come from the same data source, thereby allowing more accurate estimation of death rates.…”

“…Much of the literature, however, has focused on certain segments of the foreign-born population—most notably, on Hispanics (Elo et al 2004; Lariscy et al 2015; Palloni and Arias 2004; Turra and Elo 2008) and, to a lesser extent, on Asians (Elo 1997; Lauderdale and Kestenbaum 2002) and blacks (Dupre et al 2012). …”