Report of the Second Workshop on Age Adjustment

This report contains a summary of the Second Workshop on Age Adjustment held at the National Center for Health Statistics on June 5-6, 1997. The workshop, which was a follow up to the First Workshop on Age Adjustment (1991), was held to consider changing the standard used for age-adjusting death rates and to develop an implementation plan. This report includes follow up to the recommendations from the first workshop. Participants in the second workshop included representatives from selected Federal agencies, State health departments, nongovernmental agencies, and academia. The participants recommended that the current population standard for age-adjusting death rates be changed from the 1940 standard million population to a standard based on a projected year 2000 population. On August 26, 1998, the Secretary, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services approved the recommendations of the second workshop as departmental policy effective with the 1999 data year. In addition, the proposed change has been widely publicized in presentations to State vital statistics programs and to Federal agencies.