A Method for Projecting Age‐Specific Mortality Rates for Certain Causes of Death

Richard W. Leggett, Douglas J. Crawford

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

A method is presented for projecting mortality rates for certain causes on the basis of observed rates during past years. This method arose from a study of trends in age‐specific mortality rates for respiratory cancers, and for heuristic purposes it is shown how the method can be developed from certain theories of cancer induction. However, the method is applicable in the more common situation in which the underlying physical processes cannot be modeled with any confidence but the mortality rates are approximable over short time intervals by functions of the form a exp bt, where b may vary in a continuous, predictable fashion as the time interval is varied. It appears from applications to historical data that this projection method is in some cases a substantial improvement over conventional curve‐fitting methods and often uncovers trends which are not apparent from observed data.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)205-215
Number of pages11
JournalRisk Analysis
Volume1
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 1981

Keywords

  • forecasting
  • mortality rates
  • relative risk
  • respiratory cancer
  • trending

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