American Journal of Epidemiology Vol. 145, No. 2: 175-183
Copyright © 1997 by The Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health
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Identification of a Cohort of Male and Female Twins Aged 65 Years or More in the United States
1Division of Epidemiology-Biostatistics, School of Public Health, University of Illinois at Chicago Chicago, IL
2Vietnam Era Twin Registry, Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center Hines, IL
3VA Cooperative Studies in Health Services, Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center Hines, IL
4Department of Bio-Behavioral Health, College of Health and Human Development, The Pennsylvania State University State College, PA
5Department of Human Genetics, Medical College of Virginia Richmond, VA
Reprint requests to Dr. Jack Goldberg at the School of Public Health, University of Illinois at Chicago, 2121 West Taylor Street, Room 526 (M/C 922), Chicago, IL 60612-7260.
In this paper, a method with which to identify a national cohort of elderly twins is proposed. Record linkage algorithms were developed and applied to the >30 million records contained in the Medicare beneficiary file. The matching algorithm for male/male pairs used race (black or white), last name, date of birth, and state of issuance of the Social Security number. Female/female and male/female pairs were selected with matching on race, date of birth, and the first seven digits of the Social Security number to compensate for the absence of maiden names. A stratified random sample of same-sex and opposrte-sex white and black pairs (six groups) were selected and surveyed for determination of the actual prevalence of twins. On the basis of these results, the authors conclude that this method could identify an estimated 18,308 male/male, 7,544 female/female, and 204 male/female pairs of twins aged 65 years or more. This would be the largest sample of older twins ever assembled in the United States and represents a significant new resource for epidemiologic studies of the aging population. Am J Epidemiol 1997; 145: 175–83.
aged; medical record linkage; Medicare; minority groups; twins; United States Health Care Financing Administration
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