Université Catholique de Louvain and Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
Demography. 2013 Feb;50(1):207-28. doi: 10.1007/s13524-012-0149-1.
Because of incomplete registration of deaths in most countries in sub-Saharan Africa, data on the survival of close relatives constitute the cornerstone of estimates of adult mortality. Since 1990, sibling histories have been widely collected in Demographic and Health Surveys and are increasingly being relied upon to estimate both general and maternal mortality. Until recently, the use of sibling histories was thought to lead to underestimates of mortality, but a more optimistic view in the literature emerged with the development by Gakidou and King (Demography 43:569-585, 2006) of corrections for selection biases. Based on microsimulations, this article shows that Gakidou and King's weighting scheme has been incorrectly applied to survey data, leading to overestimates of mortality, especially for males. The evidence for an association between mortality and sibship size in adulthood is reviewed. Female mortality appears to decline slightly with the number of surviving sisters, although this could be an artifact of severe recall errors in larger sibships or familial clustering of deaths. Under most circumstances, corrections for selection biases should have only a modest effect on sibling estimates.
由于在撒哈拉以南非洲的大多数国家，死亡登记并不完整，因此近亲生存数据是估计成人死亡率的基石。自 1990 年以来，人口与健康调查广泛收集了兄弟姐妹的历史数据，并越来越多地被用于估计一般和孕产妇死亡率。直到最近，人们一直认为使用兄弟姐妹的历史数据会导致死亡率低估，但随着 Gakidou 和 King（人口统计学 43:569-585，2006）为选择偏差开发了校正方法，文献中出现了更为乐观的观点。基于微模拟，本文表明，Gakidou 和 King 的加权方案错误地应用于调查数据，导致死亡率高估，尤其是男性。本文还回顾了死亡率与成年后兄弟姐妹数量之间关联的证据。女性死亡率似乎随着幸存姐妹数量的增加而略有下降，尽管这可能是在较大的兄弟姐妹群体中严重回忆错误或死亡的家族聚集的一种人为现象。在大多数情况下，选择偏差的校正对兄弟姐妹的估计只有适度的影响。
