How and Why US Counties and UK Registration Areas Differ in the Distribution of Age at Death

This project aimed to assemble a US mortality data series with county-level identifiers and assembled data on covariates at the county level (education, income, health care). The researcher analyzed changes in variance at adult death and the age distribution of deaths within counties as well as among them. In addition he assembled a UK mortality data set at the local area level and analyzed change in the age distribution of deaths within and among local areas. This pilot helped illuminate the nature of inequalities in mortality within and between the US and UK, especially the puzzling differences that have been reported in the literature. This pilot also helped prepare for future international comparisons of the nature and source of mortality inequality within and between countries. The researcher completed a systematic analysis of mortality change in the US and its age-patterns, using alternative measures of disparity (entropy and variance). He developed an analytical formulation of the dynamics of change in life expectancy using versions of the Lee-Carter model, and obtained new insights into the processes of mortality change. He applied these to spatially distributed data. This project led to the publication of three manuscripts: “The Final Inequality”, “Variance in death and its implications for modeling and forecasting mortality” and “Linking the population growth rate and the age-at-death distribution”. The researchers submitted an R01 grant entitled, “Individual variation, environments and evolution in biodemography” in March 2012.