The sociospatial factors of death: Analyzing effects of geospatially-distributed variables in a Bayesian mortality model for Hong Kong

Thayer Alshaabi, David R Dewhurst, James P Bagrow, Peter S Dodds and Christopher M Danforth

PLOS ONE, 2021, vol. 16, issue 3, 1-20

Abstract: Human mortality is in part a function of multiple socioeconomic factors that differ both spatially and temporally. Adjusting for other covariates, the human lifespan is positively associated with household wealth. However, the extent to which mortality in a geographical region is a function of socioeconomic factors in both that region and its neighbors is unclear. There is also little information on the temporal components of this relationship. Using the districts of Hong Kong over multiple census years as a case study, we demonstrate that there are differences in how wealth indicator variables are associated with longevity in (a) areas that are affluent but neighbored by socially deprived districts versus (b) wealthy areas surrounded by similarly wealthy districts. We also show that the inclusion of spatially-distributed variables reduces uncertainty in mortality rate predictions in each census year when compared with a baseline model. Our results suggest that geographic mortality models should incorporate nonlocal information (e.g., spatial neighbors) to lower the variance of their mortality estimates, and point to a more in-depth analysis of sociospatial spillover effects on mortality rates.

Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0247795 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 47795&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0247795

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0247795

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().