Table 4.
Multilevel linear regression of the magnitude of age errors during SSH interview
| Live Sisters | Deceased Sisters | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Median Error (IQR) |
β | Median Error (IQR) |
β | |
| Sibling’s Characteristics | ||||
| Agea | ||||
| <25 years old | 0.27 (−1, 2) | Ref. | 1.94 (0, 4) | Ref. |
| 25–44 years old | 1.58 (−1, 4) | 2.50** | 3.39 (0, 7) | 1.24 |
| ≥45 years old | 2.56 (−1, 6) | 4.22*** | 7.52 (0, 14) | 6.28*** |
| Same biological father as respondent? | ||||
| No | 1.86 (−2, 5) | Ref. | 4.84 (0, 5) | Ref. |
| Yes | 1.72 (−1, 4) | 0.23 | 6.77 (0, 6) | −0.76 |
| Death during eight-year reference period? | ||||
| No | –– | –– | 2.52 (0, 5) | Ref. |
| Yes | –– | –– | 4.08 (0, 6) | 1.86* |
| Respondent Characteristics | ||||
| Place of interview | ||||
| Bandafassi DSS area | 1.44 (−1, 4) | Ref. | 3.11 (0, 6) | Ref. |
| Tambacounda/Kédougou | 3.49 (1, 6) | 2.04* | 2.73 (0, 5) | 0.18 |
| Age | ||||
| <25 years old | 1.75 (−1, 4) | Ref. | 2.13 (0, 3) | Ref. |
| 25–34 years old | 2.41 (0, 4) | −0.40 | 3.29 (0, 5) | 0.77 |
| 35–44 years old | 1.26 (−2, 5) | −2.47* | 2.56 (0, 6) | −0.11 |
| ≥45 years old | 1.53 (−2, 5) | −2.37* | 3.79 (−1, 7) | 0.08 |
| Education | ||||
| Never been to school | 1.70 (−1, 5) | Ref. | 2.92 (0, 6) | Ref. |
| Ever been to school | 1.93 (0, 3) | 0.41 | 3.09 (0, 6) | −0.09 |
| Sibship Characteristics | ||||
| Ethnic group | ||||
| Fulani | 1.95 (−1, 4) | Ref. | 2.34 (0, 5) | Ref. |
| Bedik | 1.53 (−2, 4) | −0.02 | 5.37 (0, 10) | 2.43* |
| Mandinka | 1.18 (−1, 2) | −0.50 | 3.15 (0, 5) | 1.04 |
| Constantb | –– | 0.04 | –– | 1.58 |
| Nc,d | 252 | 264 | ||
Current age or age at death, as observed in HDSS.
Model includes only a sibship-level random effect because there are too few deaths per respondent to estimate a respondent-level random effect.
Five outliers for which the difference between observed and reported age at death was >30 years (in absolute value) were excluded; we chose to exclude these outliers because such large errors may be due to linkage errors rather than true age-reporting errors. They may also be due, however, to interviewer errors in which the answers to the questions on age and date of death were mistakenly switched; estimates of the fixed effects are unaffected by the inclusion of these outliers, but estimates of the random-effect nearly double if the outliers are included.
Eleven cases were excluded because of missing data on age at death, and three cases were excluded because of missing data on current age.
p < .10;
p< .05;
p < .01;
p < .001