Sociodemographic differentials in adult mortality: A review of analytic approaches

Sociodemographic differences in US adult mortality, although increasingly better documented, remain poorly understood. Differential mortality 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 authors pose a series of questions aimed at encouraging research on differential mortality along new, causally pertinent directions. These include the modeling of differential mortality in a proximate determinants perspective, the incorporation of time into differential mortality models, 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 described.