Accounting for HIV Prevalence in Bayesian Projections of Life Expectancy for All Countries

• Activity Number: 492
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Wednesday, August 12, 2015 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
• Sponsor: Section on Bayesian Statistical Science
• Author(s): Jessica Godwin* and Adrian Raftery
• Companies: University of Washington and University of Washington
• Keywords: Bayesian hierarchical model ; probabilistic population projections ; generalized HIV epidemic ; antiretroviral therapy

Abstract

Probabilistic projections of population size are of great interest and have many important applications in pension planning, climate science, food security, etc. Probabilistic projections of population size require probabilistic projections of mortality, fertility and migration rates. In 2014, the UN issued official probabilistic population projections for the first time, using the Bayesian hierarchical model for projecting life expectancy of Raftery et al. (2013, Demography). However, this model did not apply to the 40 or so countries with generalized HIV/AIDS epidemics, because these have untypical age-specific mortality patterns. We extend the model to account for HIV prevalence and antiretroviral therapy (ART) coverage. With this extension, the model applies to all countries.