JSM 2004 - Toronto

Abstract #301147

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Activity Number: 344
Type: Contributed
Date/Time: Wednesday, August 11, 2004 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
Sponsor: Section on Statistics in Epidemiology
Abstract - #301147
Title: A Bayesian Analysis of the Mortality Curve for Small Area
Author(s): Rong Wei*+ and Balgomin Nandram and Wenxing Zha
Companies: National Center for Health Statistics and National Center for Health Statistics and National Center for Health Statistics
Address: 14003 Marleigh Lane, Clifton, VA, 20124,
Keywords: mortality curve ; Heligman-Pollard law ; nonlinear model ; Griddy Gibbs sampler ; State Life Tables
Abstract:

A pilot study showed that U.S. mortality data have a pattern of age-specific death rates which can be parameterized with the Heligman-Pollard (HP) law. In constructing decennial State Life Tables, difficulties rise in smoothing mortality curves for some states with incomplete and sparse data (i.e., the HP law cannot be fitted to each state separately). To overcome this difficulty, a Bayesian method for small-area estimation is adopted. National mortality data with state code for the period 1999-2001, individuals aged 0 to 80 years, are modeled for demographic subpopulations. Death rates by age and state with independence are assumed to share a common beta distribution with one set of HP parameters for the entire U.S. Some HP parameters are transformed so that all parameters lie in the unit interval smaller than 1. Thus, independent uniform priors are placed on these parameters providing proper posterior inference. The Griddy Gibbs sampler is used to fit the overall model for the nation, and then an output analysis is used to obtain the HP law for each state.

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