SOCIODEMOGRAPHIC DIFFERENTIALS IN ADULT MORTALITY - A REVIEW OF ANALYTIC APPROACHES

Sociodemographic differences in US adult mortality, although increasin gly better documented, remain poorly understood. Differential mortalit y studies often adopt descriptive approaches that are narrow in scope and conceptually ambiguous. Following a discussion of the conventional approaches used to analyze differentials in adult mortality, the auth ors pose a series of questions aimed at encouraging research on differ ential mortality along new, causally pertinent directions. These inclu de the modeling of differential mortality in a proximate determinants perspective, the incorporation of time into differential mortality mod els, the inclusion of more refined outcome measures, and the use of a macro-level perspective to better understand mortality differentials. Examples of recent studies expanding in these directions are briefly d escribed.