LIFE EXPECTANCY IN 4 US RACIAL ETHNIC POPULATIONS - 1990

Previous estimates of life expectancy in the United States have not co rrected for biases in population and mortality data, and no study has examined life expectancy in U.S. Asian/Pacific Islander and American I ndian populations. We used information on population undercounts by ra ce/ethnicity in the census and on misclassification of race/ethnicity on death certificates to calculate life expectancy for black, white, A merican Indian, and Asian men and women in the United States in 1990. Correction for undercount and misclassification had little effect on l ife expectancy estimates for whites, but it substantially decreased es timates for American Indians and Asians. Asian men had life expectanci es of 82.0 years and Asian women 85.8 years-the highest life expectanc ies reported for any population in the world and beyond the limit pred icted by some current theories.