Journal of Epidemiology
Online ISSN : 1349-9092
Print ISSN : 0917-5040
ISSN-L : 0917-5040

This article has now been updated. Please use the final version.

version.2
Estimation of Socioeconomic Inequalities in Mortality in Japan Using National Census-linked Longitudinal Mortality Data
Hirokazu TanakaJohan P. MackenbachYasuki Kobayashi
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JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS Advance online publication
Supplementary material

Article ID: JE20210106

version.2: March 23, 2022
version.1: October 09, 2021
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Abstract

Background: We aimed to develop census-linked longitudinal mortality data for Japan and assess their validity as a new resource for estimating socioeconomic inequalities in health.

Methods: Using deterministic linkage, we identified, from national censuses for 2000 and 2010 and national death records, persons and deceased persons who had unique personal identifiers (generated using sex, birth year/month, address, and marital status). For the period 2010–2015, 1,537,337 Japanese men and women aged 30–79 years (1.9% in national census) were extracted to represent the sample population. This population was weighted to adjust for confounding factors. We estimated age-standardized mortality rates (ASMRs) by education level and occupational class. The slope index of inequality (SII) and relative index inequality (RII) by educational level were calculated as inequality measures.

Results: The reweighted sample population’s mortality rates were somewhat higher than those of the complete registry, especially in younger age-groups and for external causes. All-cause ASMRs (per 100,000 person-years) for individuals aged 40–79 years with high, middle, and low education levels were 1,078 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1,051–1,105), 1,299 (95% CI, 1,279–1,320), and 1,670 (95% CI, 1,634–1,707) for men, and 561 (95% CI, 536–587), 601 (95% CI, 589–613), and 777 (95% CI, 745–808) for women, respectively, during 2010–2015. SII and RII by educational level increased among both sexes between 2000–2005 and 2010–2015, which indicates that mortality inequalities increased.

Conclusions: The developed census-linked longitudinal mortality data provide new estimates of socioeconomic inequalities in Japan that can be triangulated with estimates obtained with other methods.

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© 2021 Hirokazu Tanaka et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
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