Journal Article

MortalitySmooth: an R package for smoothing Poisson counts with P-splines

Camarda, C. G.
Journal of Statistical Software , 50:1 (2012)

Abstract

The MortalitySmooth package provides a framework for smoothing count data in both one- and two-dimensional settings. Although general in its purposes, the package is specifically tailored to demographers, actuaries, epidemiologists, and geneticists who may be interested in using a practical tool for smoothing mortality data over ages and/or years. The total number of deaths over a specified age- and year-interval is assumed to be Poisson-distributed, and P-splines and generalized linear array models are employed as a suitable regression methodology. Extra-Poisson variation can also be accommodated.
Keywords: mortality, Poisson's law, smoothing
The Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) in Rostock is one of the leading demographic research centers in the world. It's part of the Max Planck Society, the internationally renowned German research society.