Validity of reported age and centenarian prevalence in New England

Introduction: the age reported by or on behalf of centenarians may be suspe ct unless proven correct. We report the validity of age reports in a popula tion-based sample of centenarians living in New England and the prevalence of centenarians in an area within the North Eastern USA. Methods: cohort study. All centenarians in a population-based sample detect ed by local censuses. Ages were confirmed by birth certificate. Type of res idence and whether the subject was living independently were also recorded. Results: from a population of about 450 000 people, 289 potential centenari ans were reported by the censuses of the eight towns participating in the s tudy. Of these, 186 (64%) had died at the time centenarian prevalence was d etermined. Of the 80 still alive, 13 (16%) had incorrect birth years record ed by the censuses. The specificity of the censuses for stating the number of centenarians alive and living in the sample was 28-31%. Using additional sources, only four more centenarians were located, indicating that the sen sitivity of the censuses approached 100%. We had an 83% success rate in obt aining proof of age in those families we interviewed. In all instances, age and birth order of children were an important source of corroborative evid ence and in no case did we detect inconsistencies with the families' report ed ages of the centenarian subjects. Therefore, there were at least 46 cent enarians or approximately 1 centenarian per 10 000 people. Conclusions: age validation can be performed for most centenarians in the N orth Eastern USA. Self or family reports of those between the ages of 100 a nd 107 years were dependable.