Trends in the black-white life expectancy gap, 2003-2008.

To the Editor: Understanding the causes of black-white differences in mortality has important consequences for interventions to reduce health inequalities in the United States. A previous report found a nearly 2-year decline in the blackwhite life expectancy gap among men and a 1-year decline among women between 1993 and 2003. We investigated whether these changes have continued in recent years. Methods. Similar to a previous study, we abstracted data on deaths and population from the US National Vital Statistics System by age and cause of death for non-Hispanic blacks and whites in 2003 and 2008. We used the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s WONDER software and abridged life table methods to estimate life expectancy at birth, and used the method by Arriaga for decomposing differences in life expectancy between populations by age and cause of death. We selected International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision codes to capture leading causes of death among sex and race groups, and calculated ageadjusted death rates using the US 2000 standard million