Abstract
The major goal of this study is to propose improvements in the methods for forecasting overall mortality. In order to reach this goal, three types of trend-oriented forecasts have been studied. Each type of forecast is conditional on developments in one of the three factors, period, cohort and cause of death, which are known to represent symptomatic measures of certain causal mechanisms. Mortality projections have been made for four developed European countries: France, Italy, the Netherlands and Norway. The projections are based on observed mortality data over the years 1950--1994 and cohorts born in the nineteenth and twentieth century. The results of the analyses do not show a best solution, though the cause-of-death approach looks the most promising. However, the period and cohort approaches certainly have additional value in the forecasting process. The cause-of-death approach should ideally be used jointly with the overall mortality period (or overall mortality cohort) approach. However, the cause-of-death approach is not optimal for forecasting the mortality of the oldest-old. Another modelling method, for instance parameterization of overall mortality, should be considered for that purpose. The cohort approach can be used to improve forecasting of period mortality.
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Tabeau, E., Ekamper, P., Huisman, C. et al. Improving Overall Mortality Forecasts by Analysing Cause-of-Death, Period and Cohort Effects in Trends. European Journal of Population 15, 153–183 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1006109310764
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1006109310764