  This article describes a method to estimate the mortality rate ratio R from
current status data with duration in a chronic condition in case the general
mortality of the overall population is known. Apart from the general mortality,
the method requires four pieces of information from the study participants: age
and time at the survey/interview, whether the chronic condition is present
(current status) and if so, for how long the condition is present (duration).
The method uses a differential equation that relates prevalence, incidence and
mortality to estimate R of the people with the chronic condition compared to
those without the condition.
  To demonstrate feasibility, a simulation based on the illness-death model
(multi-state model) with transition rates motivated from long-term care is run.
It is found that the method requires a large number of study participants
(100000 or more) to estimate R with a reasonably low relative error. Despite
the large sample size, the method can be useful in settings when
cross-sectional information are easily available, e.g., in claims data, and
national age-specific general mortality rates are accessible from vital
statistics.

Methodology;Populations and Evolution