2025/05/12 by Juha M. Alho · 1 voice
Health Professions · Social Sciences · #Global Health Care Issues #Health disparities and outcomes #Insurance, Mortality, Demography, Risk Management
paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/jrsssa/qnaf053
openalex publication_date 2025/05/12 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Abstract Shocks of short duration on mortality may be caused, e.g. by wars, adverse weather conditions, or epidemics. Although life table methods are a preferred approach for describing the gradual time evolution of mortality, conventional measures can be problematic when shocks occur. The notion of a synthetic population is typically unappealing, when shocks occur. An alternate marginal measure is defined and applied. It is shown to be closely related to the calculation of life years lost per person. The new marginal life expectancy measure can be generally useful as a diagnostic tool. Applications to war casualties, Asian influenza, and COVID-19, are developed using data from Finland. Less obvious applications are pointed out. If shocks hit hard ages in which mortality is low, calculating absolute numbers of lost years may be more useful. The role of the proposed measure among other risk measures is discussed.