Linkages to Improve Mortality Data for American Indians and Alaska Natives: A New Model for Death Reporting?
Open accessAbstract
Racial misclassification is a well-documented weakness of mortality data taken from death certificates. As a result, mortality statistics for American Indians and Alaska Natives (AI/ANs) present, at best, an inaccurate and misleading assessment of mortality in this population. Studies evaluating the quality of race/ethnicity reporting on death certificates have linked data from death certificates to other data sources collected when the decedent was still alive (e.g., Census, Current Population Survey). Such studies have shown substantial misclassification of AI/AN decedents. Despite limitations, linking mortality data from death certificates with data from other sources collected when decedents were living provides opportunities to evaluate and correct misclassification of populations such as AI/AN persons and facilitates the calculation and presentation of more accurate mortality statistics.
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U.S. mortality data derived from vital statistics for Indigenous Peoples are not always available for tribal jurisdictions.
“For example, U.S. mortality data derived from vital statistics for Indigenous Peoples are not always available for tribal jurisdictions (Anderson, Copeland, & Hayes, 2014;Freemantle et al., 2015).”
From Data as a Strategic Resource: Self-determination, Governance, and the Data Challenge for Indigenous Nations in the United States (2017) · cites this paper as Anderson, Copeland, & Hayes, 2014
The paper (section headed “RACE/ETHNICITY REPORTING ON DEATH CERTIFICATES”; page unavailable in our copy) says vital statistics can produce mortality statistics for small areas, but AI/AN racial misclassification makes them unreliable. It proposes linking death certificates with tribal membership records to improve statistics for tribal populations. It does not establish that vital-statistics mortality data are unavailable for tribal jurisdictions. (LLM, conf=0.78)
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Rainie, S. C., Schultz, J. L., Briggs, E., Riggs, P., & Palmanteer-Holder, N. L. (2017) · International Indigenous Policy Journal · doi:10.18584/iipj.2017.8.2.1 · Cited by 114 · see citing works
- Authors
- Anderson, R. N., Copeland, G., & Hayes, J. M.
- Affiliations
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (US)
- Venue
- American Journal of Public Health
- Publisher
- American Public Health Association
- Published
- 2014-06
- Volume
- 104
- Issue
- S3
- Pages
- S258-S262
- ISSN
- 0090-0036 (ISSN-L)
- 1541-0048
- PMC
- PMC4035882
- OpenAlex
- W2004208047
- Cited by
- 44
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 1 · 2015: 1 · 2014: 1
- FWCI
- 4.26
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- American Journal of Public Health (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › Health Information Management › Medical Coding and Health Information
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Oncology › Global Cancer Incidence and Screening
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Epidemiology › Healthcare Systems and Public Health
- Keywords
- American Indians and Alaska Natives, mortality statistics, death certificates, racial misclassification, data linkage, census data, Current Population Survey
- MeSH terms
- Alaska, Cause of Death, Data Collection, Death Certificates, Inuit, Humans, Indians, North American, Mortality, Population Surveillance
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