Age of death of parents of patients with rheumatoid arthritis: data from a middle class sample.

To test the observation that was made in a largely nonwhite, lower socioeconomic class clinic sample that parents of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) had an earlier age of death than control parents, we determined parental age of death in 499 patients with RA and 491 controls (381 with osteoarthritis and 110 with fibromyalgia). Patients and controls were largely white (greater than 94%) and had a mean education level greater than 12 years. Parents did not differ in survival time or age of death at the 0.05 level, but parents in our series lived 6 years longer than those studied in the lower socioeconomic community.