Avoidable mortality risks and measurement of wellbeing and inequality

Area of Science:

• Demography
• Public Health
• Health Economics

Background:

• Measuring wellbeing and inequality often relies on standard mortality metrics.
• Existing measures may not adequately capture the impact of preventable deaths on societal wellbeing.
• Distinguishing between controllable and uncontrollable mortality is crucial for targeted interventions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a novel data envelopment method for separating avoidable and unavoidable mortality risks.
• To introduce an improved measure of wellbeing and inequality based on age-at-avoidable-death.
• To establish a reference distribution of unavoidable mortality risks.

Main Methods:

• Application of a data envelopment method to life table data from 191 countries (year 2000).
• Separation of mortality risks into avoidable and unavoidable components.
• Development of an age-at-avoidable-death metric derived from a reference distribution of unavoidable mortality.

Main Results:

• A new method successfully differentiates avoidable from unavoidable mortality risks.
• The age-at-avoidable-death measure presents a significantly different perspective on wellbeing compared to the standard age-at-death.
• The proposed metric reveals more pronounced differences in inequality measures.

Conclusions:

• Avoidable mortality is a more relevant indicator for wellbeing and inequality assessment.
• The age-at-avoidable-death measure offers a superior tool for evaluating societal progress and disparities.
• The data envelopment method provides a robust framework for mortality risk analysis.