Abstract

U.S. early-life (ages 1–24) deaths are tragic, far too common, and largely preventable. Yet demographers have focused scant attention on U.S. early-life mortality patterns, particularly as they vary across racial and ethnic groups. We employed the restricted-use 1999–2011 National Health Interview Survey–Linked Mortality Files and hazard models to examine racial/ethnic differences in early-life mortality. Our results reveal that these disparities are large, strongly related to differences in parental socioeconomic status, and expressed through different causes of death. Compared to non-Hispanic whites, non-Hispanic blacks experience 60 percent and Mexican Americans 32 percent higher risk of death over the follow-up period, with demographic controls. Our finding that Mexican Americans experience higher early-life mortality risk than non-Hispanic whites differs from much of the literature on adult mortality. We also show that these racial/ethnic differences attenuate with controls for family structure and especially with measures of socioeconomic status. For example, higher mortality risk among Mexican Americans than among non-Hispanic whites is no longer significant once we controlled for mother’s education or family income. Our results strongly suggest that eliminating socioeconomic gaps across groups is the key to enhanced survival for children and adolescents in racial/ethnic minority groups.

摘要

在美国，生命早期（1-24岁）的死亡是悲惨的、非常普遍的，而且在很大程度上是可以预防的。然而，人口统计学家对美国早期生命死亡率模式关注甚少，特别是因为不同种族和族裔群体的死亡率存在差异。我们采用限制使用的 1999-2011 年国家健康访谈调查相关死亡率档案和风险模型来研究早期死亡率的种族/民族差异。我们的研究结果表明，这些差异很大，与父母社会经济地位的差异密切相关，并通过不同的死因表现出来。在人口控制的情况下，与非西班牙裔白人相比，在随访期间非西班牙裔黑人的死亡风险高出 60%，墨西哥裔美国人的死亡风险高出 32%。我们的发现是，墨西哥裔美国人的早期死亡风险高于非西班牙裔白人，这与许多有关成人死亡率的文献不同。我们还表明，这些种族/民族差异随着对家庭结构的控制，特别是通过社会经济地位的衡量而减弱。例如，一旦我们控制了母亲的教育或家庭收入，墨西哥裔美国人比非西班牙裔白人更高的死亡风险就不再显着。我们的结果强烈表明，消除群体之间的社会经济差距是提高少数种族/族裔群体儿童和青少年生存率的关键。