Statistical approaches for reconstructing continuous series of mortality by causes of death

Data on cause-specific mortality have been collected over several decades for different countries. Nevertheless this valuable source of information has not been sufficiently explored. This is mainly due to frequent revisions of the International Classification of Diseases which lead to discontinuities and disruptions in cause-specific mortality trends. In recent years I have been developing a new methodology for reconstructing continuous series of mortality by cause of death. The model assumes death counts as realizations from a Poisson distribution. The expected value of this distribution is a composed mean which embodies the continuous series and the redistribution pattern among causes of death. An algorithm allows the simultaneous estimation of these two components. The known associations among causes is used as input and the only assumption that is made about the underlying continuous series is smoothness.

In the European Population Conference 2012 in Stockholm, I presented this approach: A Statistical Approach for Reconstructing Continuous Series of Mortality by Cause of Death (draft).

I provide also the slides I presented at the EPC 2012.