PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - B G Miller
AU  - J F Hurley
TI  - Life table methods for quantitative impact assessments in chronic mortality
AID  - 10.1136/jech.57.3.200
DP  - 2003 Mar 01
TA  - Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health
PG  - 200--206
VI  - 57
IP  - 3
4099  - http://jech.bmj.com/content/57/3/200.short
4100  - http://jech.bmj.com/content/57/3/200.full
SO  - J Epidemiol Community Health2003 Mar 01; 57
AB  - Quantitative health impact assessments of chronic mortality, where the impacts are expected to be observed over a number of years, are complicated by the link between death rates and surviving populations. A general calculation framework for quantitative impact assessment is presented, based on standard life table calculation methods, which permits consistent future projections of impacts on mortality from changes in death rates. Implemented as a series of linked spreadsheets, the framework offers complete flexibility in the sex specific, age specific, and year specific patterns of baseline mortality death rates; in the predicted impacts upon these; in the weights or values placed on gains in life; and in the summary measures of impact. Impacts can be differential by cause of death. Some examples are given of predictions of the impacts of reductions in chronic mortality in the populations of England and Wales and of Scotland.