Combining Life Table Data

Gilbert Fellingham and H. Dennis Tolley

North American Actuarial Journal, 1999, vol. 3, issue 3, 25-38

Abstract: Actuaries are often required to form opinions or make value assessments entailing data from several tables, possibly generated from different sources. Often, no formal methods of combining tables are used. This paper illustrates a method for combining tables of count data using maximum likelihood methods. Combining data tables can be problematic for several reasons. Often, not all cells will contain data when multiple tables are combined. Also, since the same level of aggregation over covariates is often not available in each of the constituent tables, some data will exist only on the margins. The method we present is appropriate when data for some cells are missing and even when data are available only on the margins. To illustrate the method, we combine mortality tables from three different sources with different classification information. The analysis indicates the possible presence of a health risk factor beyond the use of alcohol and tobacco in a population of active members of a church.

Date: 1999
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DOI: 10.1080/10920277.1999.10595823

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