Medical conditions at death among the Caucasian and Japanese elderly in Hawaii: analysis of multiple causes of death, 1976-78.

This paper discusses the prevalence of selected medical conditions at death among elderly Caucasians and Japanese in Hawaii and the associations among conditions listed in the death certificates of the two ethnic groups during 1976-78. For the individual conditions, wide variations were found in the ratio between the total number of times a condition was mentioned in the death certificates and the number of times it was identified as the underlying cause of death. Distinctly different patterns of disease clustering emerged for deaths involving cancer and those not involving cancer. Although in most situations causal combinations were similar for the two ethnic groups, deaths involving two conditions, cerebrovascular disease and cancer of digestive organs, presented different patterns.