Ra. Hummer et al., SOCIODEMOGRAPHIC DIFFERENTIALS IN ADULT MORTALITY - A REVIEW OF ANALYTIC APPROACHES, Population and development review, 24(3), 1998, pp. 553
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.