A Time Series Analysis of the Death Rates and Rectangularization of the Survival Curve, 1970-2010 / 한국역학회지

As the population of senior people has been increased rapidly during the past 30 years in Koera, the health policy and related research in this field are strongly demanded to manage various problems which can be derived from the gerontic phenomenon. We estimated the death rates up to 2010 using the annual mortality data published by the National Statistical Office from 1970 to 1995 by time series analysis and calculated the survival curves, life expectancy by life table method with modified Graville's formular and proposed several measures which can be used in describing the theory of retangularization of survival curves and compression of mortality hypothesis. According to the results, the relative and absolute rectangularization and the convergency of survival curves were observed, and all the Keyfitz's H, NH, SD, and CV decreased while the life expectancy increased in the period of 1970 to 2010. So we conclude that the hypothesis of mortality compression suggested by Fries explains the changing pattern of aged population in Korea very well.

Estimation of Survival Curve Rectangularization in Korea, (1970-2010)

BACKGROUND: The future health of our increasing senior population depends upon the interrelationship between the onset time of the first major disease, infirmity or disability and the time of death. Reduction of morbidity requires compressing the average period between two points and reducing the average level of morbidity during this period. In this article, authors demonstrated the change of mortality curve and estimated the mortality curve upto 2010. And we intend to use this result as basic data in the future for preventive health service, health promotion, and health policy for senior people. METHODS: In this study, the authors demonstrated the survival curve from 1970 to 1995. And we intended to estimate death rate according to age and year upto 2010 and construct a new forecasting model. By using this model, we can calculate the data upto 2010 and suggest mortality curve. RESULTS: According to the results, the relative and absolute rectangularization and the convergency of survival curves were observed, and all the Keyfitz's H, NH, SD and CV decreased while the life expectancy in creased in the period of 1970 to 2010. So we conclude that the hypothesis of mortality compression suggested by Fries explains the changing pattern of aged population in Korea very well. CONCLUSION: According to Fries theory, this study shows compression of mortality is exist in Korea But when we observe the tail of mortality curve, there are no evidence that life expectancy reaches to limitation in Korea and we expect life expectancy of Korean will continuously increase.