Education reporting and classification on death certificates in the United States

Objectives-This report analyzes education reporting and classification on the death certificate and their effect on estimates of mortality and life expectancy by education level in the United States. Methods-The National Longitudinal Mortality Study (NLMS) was used to analyze education information on the death certificate for participants in the Current Population Survey (CPS) from 1992 through 1998 who died by the end of 1998. Educational attainment reported on the death certificate for these persons was compared to their educational attainment reported in the CPS. NLMS wasalsousedtocalculate classification ratios consisting of the number of deaths by education level in the CPS compared to the number of deaths by education level on the death certificate. These classification ratios were then used to produce estimates of life expectancy by education level for the United States in 2005, adjusted for probable education misreporting on the death certificate. Results-Comparison of educational attainment from the death certificate and CPS shows differences due to the different classification systems used in the two sources and probable misreporting on the death certificate. The difference is most pronounced regarding graduation from high school. Black and Hispanic persons at the high school graduate level appear to be more likely than other racial or ethnic groups to have their educational attainment underreported on the death certificate as less than 4 years of high school completed. Adjusted estimates for the U.S. population show a large disparity in life expectancy by education level, on the order of 10-12 years for females and 11-16 years for males.