Regency EF
Comparative Analysis of the NHANES Public-Use and Restricted-Use Linked Mortality Files (304007)
Christine Cox, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (consultant)
*Suad El Burai Felix, National Center for Health Statistics
Cordell Golden, National Center for Health Statistics
Lisa Mirel, National Center for Health Statistics
Cindy Zhang, National Center for Health Statistics
Keywords: data linkage, epidemiologic methods, health survey, mortality
Linking national survey data with administrative data sources enables researchers to conduct analyses that would not be possible with each data source alone. Recently the Data Linkage Program at the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) released updated linked mortality files, including the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data linked to the National Death Index mortality files. Two versions of the files were released, a restricted-use file available through the NCHS Research Data Center and a public-use file. To reduce the re-identification risk, statistical disclosure limitation methods were applied to the public-use files before they were released. This included limiting the amount of mortality information available and perturbing cause of death and follow-up time for select records. To demonstrate the comparability between the restricted and public-use files, relative hazard ratios for all-cause and cause-specific mortality, using Cox proportional hazards models, were compared and the absolute relative bias was assessed. This presentation will describe the importance of such work in the context of data quality and fitness for use.