The Life Table - Modelling Survival and Death (Paperback, Softcover reprint of hardcover 1st ed. 2002)

The Life Table covers various important issues in life table construction and use. G. Wunsch presents a non-technical overview of the life table in the first chapter. G. Calot and A. Franco then give a detailed account of the estimation of the probability of dying between two consecutive ages, taking migration and the distribution of population at risk into account. E. Valkovics compares various methods of decomposing the difference in life expectancies. J. Anson deals with the problem of finding suitable indicators summarising the age distribution of mortality. Two chapters, respectively by G. Caselli and by E. Tabeau, F. Willekens, and F. van Poppel, are devoted to age, period, and cohort effects in mortality. Three chapters then deal more specifically with mortality by cause of death. F. Mesle first discusses the problem of adequately registering these causes. A.E. Kunst, J.P. Mackenbach, H. Lautenbach, F.B. Oei, and F. Bijlsma examine the gains in life expectancy obtained by eliminating major causes of death, taking into account competing causes of death. J. Duchene presents an introduction to multi-state morbidity-mortality models by cause. The competing risks model is thoroughly analysed by M. Mouchart and J.M. Rolin. E. Camboid and J.M. Robine show how the life table model can be extended for the assessment of the global health level of a population. The book ends with a concluding chapter by Jon Anson, which puts life table analysis in a broader sociological perspective.