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Updated: Aug 7, 2026

Inverse Probability of Treatment Weighting (Propensity Score) using the Military Health System Data Repository and National Death Index
Published on: January 8, 2020
Computing exact excess death rates from a published mortality study
Robert M Shavelle1, David J Strauss, David R Paculdo
1Life Expectancy Project, 1439 - 17th Ave, San Francisco, CA, USA. Shavelle@LifeExpectancy.com
Abstract:
We wish to estimate the associated excess death rate (EDR) or mortality ratio (MR) from a published study of persons with a given medical condition. This requires computation of the expected mortality in the study population. If age- and sex-specific person years of data are available, this task is straightforward. Most often, however, we have only descriptive statistics--percentage male, average and standard deviation of age--at the beginning of follow up. We show here how this limited information can be used to compute an exact EDR or other quantities of interest.
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