摘要：Objectives. This study examined effects of racial/ethnic misclassification of American Indians and Alaskan natives on Washington State death certificates. Methods. Probabilistic record linkage were used to match the 1989–1997 state death files to the Northwest Tribal Registry. Results. We identified matches for 2819 decedents, including 414 (14.7%) who had been misclassified as non–American Indians and Alaskan natives on the death certificates. The likelihood of being correctly classified increased 3-fold for each higher level of American Indian and Alaskan native ancestry (odds ratio = 2.88; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 2.51, 3.30) and decreased by 6.9% per calendar year (95% CI = 2.0, 11.5). Conclusions. Systematic biases on death certificates in Washington State persist. Methods to reduce misclassification can improve data quality and enhance efforts to measure and reduce racial/ethnic health disparities. (Am J Public Health. 2002;92:443–444) Previous reports have shown that American Indian and Alaskan Native race is underreported on death certificates and other health-related data sets in Washington State and elsewhere. 1– 7 In 1999, the Northwest Tribal Epidemiology Center, Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board, established the Northwest Tribal Registry to provide a means of correcting for racial/ethnic misclassification and missing race/ethnicity data in public and other health-related data sets. In this article we describe the results of a linkage study of the Registry and Washington State death files that examined racial/ethnic misclassification.
