BACKGROUND The CONCORD study compares population-based relative survival from cancer using data from cancer registries in five continents. To estimate relative survival, general mortality life tables are required. Available statistics are incomplete, so various approaches are used to construct complete life tables. This article outlines how the life tables were constructed for CONCORD; it compa...

Further to the proposal and application of a stochastic methodology and the resulting first exit time distribution function to life table data we introduce a theoretical framework for the estimation of the maximum deterioration age and to explore on how “vitality,” according to Halley and Strehler and Mildvan, changes during the human lifetime. The mortality deceleration or mortality leveling-o...

This article integrates two methods that analyze the implications of various causes of death for life expectancy. One of the methods attributes changes in life expectancy to various causes of death; the other method examines the effect of removing deaths from a particular cause on life expectancy. This integration is accomplished by new formulas that make clearer the interactions among causes o...

This study addresses the mortality of the members of the Saxonian Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Leipzig. In fact, learned societies have been shown to present vanguard groups in the achievement of longevity. We use biographical records from the members of the Saxonian Academy of Sciences from 1846 to 2010 and compare their mortality to German life table estimates, where particularly att...

The purpose of this methodology article is to describe a suitable format for a legally acceptable report on the life expectancy of the principal in a tort case that is being advocated or defended by an attorney. Life insurance medical directors and underwriters are clearly skilled and experienced in mortality risk classification for life insurance. However, the judicial system is accustomed to ...

BACKGROUND Studies dealing with trends in inequality in length of life in India are rare. Studies documenting the contribution of age and causes of death to the inequality in length of life are more limited. OBJECTIVE The study aims to examine the trends in inequality in length of life in India and 15 major states of India and to decompose the inequality in length of life into the contributio...

To the Editor: Understanding the causes of black-white differences in mortality has important consequences for interventions to reduce health inequalities in the United States. A previous report found a nearly 2-year decline in the blackwhite life expectancy gap among men and a 1-year decline among women between 1993 and 2003. We investigated whether these changes have continued in recent years...

This study addresses the mortality of the members of a learned society. Following the literature on the social gradient of mortality, members of a learned society should exhibit much lower death rates than other social groups. We use biographical records from the members of the Austrian Academy of Sciences between 1847 and 2005 and compare their mortality to Austrian life table death rates of t...