 | The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
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| The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
Anita H. Yuan, MPH and Anne R Pebley, PhD. Dept. of Community Health Sciences, UCLA School of Public Health, University of California Los Angeles, Mail Box 951772, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1772, 310-825-1349, ayuan@ucla.edu
Cause-specific mortality in the United States has changed dramatically over the last three decades, with the most marked trend being the decline in heart disease mortality. Mortality patterns vary by sex and race, as well as geographic location. This project is a time-series analysis of cause-specific mortality by age, race and sex in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York from 1977 to 1998. We examine how cause-specific mortality differs among three cities as well as how mortality may have changed over time. Specifically, we ask whether social and demographic trends, such as changes in age composition, environmental factors, and economic indicators produced city differences in mortality trends. A second question we ask is whether mortality patterns vary by race as well as sex.
Mortality data are from the Compressed Mortality File collected by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and age-standardized to the 2000 Census population. A data set of independent variables, such as average unemployment rate, per capita income, state expenditures on health services, temperature, and precipitation on an annual basis, was assembled from various sources including the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Bureau of Labor Statistics, and National Climatic Data Center. Data are analyzed using change models and regression models that account for serial correlation. Analysis thus far has produced important and counterintuitive results such as the finding that extreme heat increases mortality while extreme cold does not.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Mortality,
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.