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Sources and Quality of Data for Mortality and Health Studies

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The Demography and Epidemiology of Human Health and Aging

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Abstract

Mortality and health data can be obtained both from the general sources for demographic data, such as censuses, vital statistics registrations, and general sample surveys, and from specialized sources, such as national sample surveys on health, administrative records on health and mortality (e.g., hospital discharge records; records of hospital inpatient stays), epidemiological studies, and clinical trials. These sources provide quantitative macrodata (aggregate data) and microdata (individual data) on mortality and health. I consider each of them in turn and then briefly discuss qualitative sources of information on health.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    A public dataset is available from the Population Research Center, University of Chicago/NORC and is downloadable from their website (src.uchicago.edu/prc/chfls.php).

  2. 2.

    For a detailed history of the Framingham Heart Study, see Daniel Levy and Susan Brink, A Change of Heart: How the People of Framingham, Massachusetts Helped Unravel the Mysteries of Cardiovascular Disease, NewYork: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005.

  3. 3.

    Sometimes population groups are used as units in the clinical trial for testing treatment protocols. In community studies random samples of population groups may be studied as paired units (one being a control). Schools or even cities may be the population units sampled. The sample in one city may be subjected to the health program being tested while the sample in another city is not. A sample of schools in a city may be divided into schools subject to the treatment program and those used as controls. Alternatively, all schools in a city may be included in a study, but only a sample of students in each school is subject to the program and another sample in each school is carried as controls. In another variation, a single sample of the population may be followed longitudinally and examined before and after a health program is put into effect.

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  1. J. Stuart Siegel Demographic Services, Nicholson Lane 5809 Unit 808, 20852-5710, North Bethesda, Maryland, USA

    Jacob S. Siegel

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Siegel, J.S. (2012). Sources and Quality of Data for Mortality and Health Studies. In: The Demography and Epidemiology of Human Health and Aging. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1315-4_2

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