November 15, 2016 | News | Call for Papers

4th Human Mortality Database Symposium: Similarities and peculiarities on the way to longer life in human populations

In 2017 the Human Mortality Database Project celebrates its 15th anniversary. On this occasion the 4th Human Mortality Database Symposium on “Similarities and peculiarities on the way to longer life in human populations” will be held on May 22 to 23, 2017 in Berlin.

The event is devoted to demographic, epidemiological, and public health research on mortality and length of life. The objective of the Symposium is to present and promote research on mortality and survival across time, space, and population groups — with analyses primarily based on data from the Human Mortality Database (HMD) and the Human Life table Database (HLD). The Symposium aims at addressing major themes and challenges of substantive research as well as methodological and data issues. In addition to contributing to the scientific programme, participants are invited to provide feedback and suggestions on the HMD and the HLD contents, techniques, and setup, and the directions of further development.

Paper proposals

Empirical and methodological papers are equally welcome. Topics of the Symposium include, but are not limited to, the following research areas:

Data and methods for the analysis of mortality, life and health expectancies.
Mortality in period and cohort dimensions. Measures and models.
Frontiers of longevity. Survival and health at advanced ages.
Health and survival of women and men. How to explain the paradox?
Causes of death and the health transition.
Mortality convergence and divergence across countries.
The East-West health divide in Europe.
Regional mortality variation and its determinants.
Socioeconomic differences in the face of death.
Use of HMD and HLD for estimation and forecasting mortality in developing countries.
HMD, HLD and related online resources. New opportunities and challenges.

If you are interested in contributing to the 4th HMD Symposium, please send a 300+ word abstract or draft paper to the HMD (hmd@mortality.org) with Cc: to Dmitry Jdanov (Jdanov@demogr.mpg.de ) by 19 February 2017. Please make sure to include: the provisional title of your proposal, the full name(s) of each author, the affiliation (full name of organization and department), and the e-mail address(es). Applicants will be notified if their paper has been accepted by 17 March 2017.

Place and date of the event

The Symposium is scheduled for 22-23 May 2017. It will take place at the WissenschaftsForum at Gendarmenmarkt in Berlin, where an office of the Max Planck Society is located. The full address is Wissenschaftsforum, Markgrafenstrasse 37, 10117 Berlin.

There are no participation fees, but the participants are expected to cover their own travel and accommodation expenses.

About the HMD Project

The Human Mortality Database is a joint project of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) and the Department of Demography of the University of California at Berkeley (UCB) with contribution by the French National Institute of Demographic Studies (INED) and support from the Berkeley Center on the Economics and Demography of Aging (CEDA) and other financial backers. The project aims to provide free and user-friendly access to a variety of data on survival and longevity (for more details see Barbieri et al. 2015). The core Project consists of two companion databases: the Human Mortality Database (www.mortality.org and www.humanmortality.de ) and the Human Life table Database (http://www.lifetable.de ). Some countries have built their own databases by applying the HMD methodology to sub-national populations: the Canadian Human Mortality Database at http://www.bdlc.umontreal.ca/chmd/ and the Japanese Mortality Database at http://www.ipss.go.jp/p-toukei/JMD/index-en.asp.

The first and second HMD Symposiums were held at MPIDR in Rostock in 2004 and 2008. The third Symposium was held at INED in Paris in 2010. Brief information about these events can be found at http://www.ceda.berkeley.edu/Conferences/index.html .

Reference

Barbieri, M.; Wilmoth, J. R.; Shkolnikov, V. M.; Glei, D. A.; Jasilionis, D.; Jdanov, D. A.; Boe, C.; Riffe, T.; Grigoriev, P.; Winant, C. 2015. Data Resource Profile: The Human Mortality Database (HMD). International Journal of Epidemiology, 2015, 1-8. doi: 10.1093/ije/dyv105 at http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2015/06/23/ije.dyv105 .