African American Life Table Lab Report

In the study of ecology, life tables are used to show important factors inside of a specific population. Factors of life tables can include mortality, life expectancy, and survivorship (Bhagawati et al 2015). For the life table lab, our data will be specifically between two categories: male and female and Caucasians and African Americans. Students were required to visit Oddfellows Cemetery, a predominately rich Caucasian cemetery, in Starkville, Mississippi. At the cemetery students collected the sex, year of birth, and the year of death from every inhabitant in the Oddfellows Cemetery. Students were also given data collected from Bethel Baptist Cemetery, a known poor African American community. Before analyzing any data, we can hypothesize

A factor in measuring population growth is considering the age class and the individual’s contribution to the population. With references to this life table lab and paper, students focused on the trends of life expectancy and survivorship based upon sex and race. In the paper by Irma Elo on African American life tables, he notes that the United States has a history of examining mortality, as well as other outcomes by race. He also noted that the subsequent gain in life expectancy with the rapid drop in mortality (2001). Our society has made enormous efforts in decreasing the bridge between the inequalities of life expectancy based on race which is related particulary to African American males. These individuals have been noted to statistically have the most negative outcomes in relation to their life expectancies. African American men with low education have a life expectancy that is much lower than any other group (Crimmins 2001). This paper along with the data compiled from a lab, can help to identify life expectancy and survivorship of an individual’s particular race and sex based on the data collected from two cemeteries in Starkville,

In column A was age class represented by variable x. In column B was the variable ax which showed all of the individuals alive at a certain age class x. In column C was survivorship which calculated the individuals alive at age class x divided by the total number of individuals alive at age time 0 and used the variable lx. Column D was the variable dx which is the proportion of individuals who died during age class x. Column E represented qx which was the age-specific death rate. Next was column F having Lx which is the average survivorship between ages x and x+1. In column G was Tx which showed the mean number of age classes survived for those in age class x. Lastly was column H, which showed the life expectancy and was represented by variable