Laboratory

Demographic Data

At a Glance Projects Publications Team

Project

Mortality Disparities at Subnational Level

Conducted by Dmitri A. Jdanov; Domantas Jasilionis, László Németh, Vladimir M. Shkolnikov; in Collaboration with Pekka Martikainen (MPIDR), Magali Barbieri (University of California, Berkeley, USA and French National Institute for Demographic Studies, Paris, France), Vladimir Canudas Romo, Sergey Timonin (both: Australian National University, Canberra, Australia), Lajos Bálint (Hungarian Demographic Research Institute, Budapest, Hungary), Alda Azevedo (University of Lisbon, Portugal), Filipe Ribeiro (University of Évora, Portugal), France Meslé, Jacques Vallin (both: French National Institute for Demographic Studies, Paris, France), Sebastian Klüsener, Pavel Grigoriev (both: Federal Institute for Population Research, Wiesbaden, Germany), Henrik Brønnum-Hansen (University of Copenhagen, Denmark), Daumantas Stumbrys (Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania)

Detailed Description

Persisting longevity and mortality disparities between and within countries are considered as key challenge for longevity sustainability and mortality improvements. Numerous studies highlighted a close relationship between higher mortality rates at the national level and pronounced disparities at the subnational level. Prior studies confirmed that higher national life expectancy masks substantial mortality inequalities across population groups and administrative units.

The vast majority of current relevant studies focuses on mortality disparities by socioeconomic status. They show that it is the most vulnerable population groups who are affected by mortality, and they assess changes in the magnitude of inequality. This project additionally focuses on the mortality of advantaged groups, i.e., vanguard groups. These show the lowest mortality and include highly educated people and those residing in the regions with highest longevity. Longevity in vanguard groups represents the highest levels of survival possible under the present macroscopic conditions. These levels are realistic horizons for entire populations and can be used as predictors of future mortality.

A primary task of the project is to generate unique coherent datasets on subnational mortality for several developed countries. To this end, we rely on the prior experience gained from building the Human Mortality Database (HMD) extensions; these include life table estimates at the subnational (i.e., regional) level. We will address several methodological challenges, such as estimating robust life tables for small population groups and regions. We do so by extending the existing methodological foundations of the HMD to more advanced methods, such as Bayesian modeling.

Publications

Manthey, J.; Jasilionis, D.; Jiang, H.; Meščeriakova-Veliulienė, O.; Petkevičienė, J.; Radišauskas, R.; Štelemėkas, M.; Rehm, J.:

The impact of alcohol taxation increase on all-cause mortality inequalities in Lithuania: an interrupted time series analysis

BMC Medicine 21:22, 1–10. (2023)    

Stickley, A.; Baburin, A.; Jasilionis, D.; Krumins, J.; Martikainen, P.; Kondo, N.; Shin, J. I.; Oh, H.; Waldman, K.; Leinsalu, M.:

Educational inequalities in hypothermia mortality in the Baltic countries and Finland in 2000–2015

European Journal of Public Health, 1–6. (2023)    

Timonin, S. A.; Jasilionis, D.; Shkolnikov, V. M.; Andreev, E. M.:

New perspective on geographical mortality divide in Russia: a district-level cross-sectional analysis, 2008-2012

Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 74:2, 144–150. (2020)    

Timonin, S. A.; Danilova, I. A.; Andreev, E. M.; Shkolnikov, V. M.:

Recent mortality trend reversal in Russia: are regions following the same tempo?

European Journal of Population 33:5, 733–763. (2017)