Though African Americans have higher death rates before their 80s, after about age 85, their age-specific death rate falls below that of the white population, a phenomenon known as the "Black-White mortality crossover." New research published in the Journal of Internal Medicine reveals that this lower mortality among African Americans persists to age 100+ years.
The study relied on data adjusted for potential misreporting of age, race, and ethnicity from the US National Center for Health Statistics to obtain life expectancy at birth and at ages 70, 85, and 100 years, as well as other life table variables, according to year, sex, race, and ethnicity.
In 2019 when Asian American population data became available, African Americans, had the second lowest life expectancies at birth in the U.S. (74 years for women and 68 for men). However, after age 86 for women and age 88 for men, African Americans had lower death rates compared with white people. Death rates for Black and Hispanic populations became similar to the Asian American population's death rate around age 98 while the white population's higher death rate persisted at these oldest ages.
During 2006–2019, the probability of survival from 70–80 years to age 100 was highest for the Hispanic population, followed by Black and then white populations. Probability of survival from age 90 to 100 years was similar for all but the white population, which had a lower survival probability at those ages. In 2019, the Asian American population had the highest probability of survival to age 100 starting from ages 70, 80, and 90 years.
The researchers hypothesize that African Americans who survive beyond about age 85 are a select survivor group, with resilience due to psychosocial and biological factors that allowed them to withstand socioeconomic disadvantages and other causes of higher mortality risk. These characteristics enable them to have lower death rates after age 85 and up to age 100 compared with white people.
"Our results support the existence of a Black-White mortality crossover around age 85 in both period and pseudo-birth cohorts, with the possibility of additional crossovers at later ages between other racial/ethnic groups," said Nadine Ouellette, PhD, the study's lead author and Associate Professor of Demography at the University of Montreal, Canada. "This translates into significant differences in the average length of life of these various groups once they reach old age, as well as their likelihood of surviving to 100 years."
Thomas Perls, MD, MPH, a Professor of Medicine and Geriatrics at Boston University Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine and Director of the New England Centenarian Study adds, "This study reinforces that people with different racial or ethnic backgrounds can vary in what characteristics determine how well and how long they live."
URL upon publication: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joim.20031
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