Heather Booth

Heather Booth
Australian National University | ANU · School of Demography

PhD Demography

About

129
Publications
36,082
Reads
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4,230
Citations
Introduction
Heather Booth is Professor Emerita in the School of Demography, Australian National University. Heather does demographic research in mortality, longevity and ageing. Among her projects is 'Coherent forecasting of mortality'.
Additional affiliations
October 1976 - December 1979
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Position
  • Researcher
January 1999 - present
Australian National University

Publications

Publications (129)
Article
Full-text available
When independence is assumed, forecasts of mortality for subpopulations are almost always divergent in the long term. We propose a method for coherent forecasting of mortality rates for two or more subpopulations, based on functional principal components models of simple and interpretable functions of rates. The product-ratio functional forecasting...
Article
Approaches and developments in demographic and population forecasting since 1980 are reviewed. Three approaches to forecasting demographic processes are extrapolation, expectation (individual-level birth expectations or population-level opinions of experts), and theory-based structural modelling involving exogenous variables. Models include 0–3 fac...
Article
Thirty years of suicide rates for Guam were analyzed by age, sex, period, and cohort. Youth suicide increased rapidly in the 1990s; certain cohorts have higher rates. Four explanatory factors are discussed, including ecological factors and migration from the Federated States of Micronesia. Direct and indirect suicide contagion followed the death by...
Article
Full-text available
The introduction of the Lee–Carter (LC) method marked a breakthrough in mortality forecasting, providing a simple yet powerful data-driven stochastic approach. The method has the merit of capturing the dynamics of mortality change by a single time index that is almost invariably linear. This thirtieth anniversary review of its 1992 publication exam...
Preprint
Full-text available
The introduction of the Lee-Carter (LC) method marked a breakthrough in mortality forecasting, providing a simple yet powerful data-driven stochastic approach. The method has the merit of capturing the dynamics of mortality change by a single time index that is invariably linear. This 30th anniversary review of its 1992 publication examines the LC...
Article
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Background Life expectancy in Australia is amongst the highest globally, but national estimates mask within-country inequalities. To monitor socioeconomic inequalities in health, many high-income countries routinely report life expectancy by education level. However in Australia, education-related gaps in life expectancy are not routinely reported...
Article
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Background Socioeconomic inequalities in mortality are evident in all high-income countries, and ongoing monitoring is recommended using linked census-mortality data. Using such data, we provide the first estimates of education-related inequalities in cause-specific mortality in Australia, suitable for international comparisons. Methods We used Au...
Preprint
Full-text available
Objective: Life expectancy in Australia is amongst the highest globally, but national estimates mask within-country inequalities. We estimate education-related inequalities in adult life expectancy in Australia. Design and setting: We estimated age-sex-education specific mortality rates using data from 2016 Australian Census linked to 2016-17 Death...
Technical Report
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This study examines the association between children’s education and parental health using data from the 2007 Philippine Study on Ageing. It employs a broad, more comprehensive, definition of health to capture the different health dimensions. By employing multiple indicators of health, this study is able to examine whether the influence of children...
Chapter
Full-text available
Mortality forecasts are an important component of population forecasting and are central to the estimation of longevity risk in actuarial practice. Planning by the state for health and aged care services and by individuals for retirement and later life depends on accurate mortality forecasts. The overall accuracy or performance of mortality forecas...
Preprint
Full-text available
Background: Socioeconomic inequalities in mortality are evident in all high-income countries and ongoing monitoring is recommended using linked census-mortality data. Using such data, we provide first estimates of education-related inequalities in cause-specific mortality in Australia, suitable for international comparisons. Methods: Using Australi...
Article
Full-text available
Accuracy in fertility forecasting has proved challenging and warrants renewed attention. One way to improve accuracy is to combine the strengths of a set of existing models through model averaging. The model-averaged forecast is derived using empirical model weights that optimise forecast accuracy at each forecast horizon based on historical data....
Preprint
Full-text available
Accuracy in fertility forecasting has proved challenging and warrants renewed attention. One way to improve accuracy is to combine the strengths of a set of existing models through model averaging. The model-averaged forecast is derived using empirical model weights that optimise forecast accuracy at each forecast horizon based on historical data....
Article
This study describes regional differences in the prevalence of functional difficulty among older persons in the Philippines. Using this measure, the study examines regional variation in disability-free life expectancy (DFLE) and investigates the factors associated with this variation. Data are drawn from the 2010 Philippine Census of Population and...
Experiment Findings
Full-text available
For each sex-specific population, a coherent mortality forecast can use as the standard either the mortality of the opposite sex in the same country or the mortality of the same sex in a different country. This experiment compares accuracy. Data are obtained from HMD.
Article
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The relationship between differential mortality rates and differences in life expectancy is well understood, but how changing differential rates translate into changing differences in life expectancy has not been fully explained. To elucidate the mechanism involved, this study extends existing decomposition methods. The extended method decomposes c...
Article
Only five populations have achieved maximum life expectancy (or best practice population) more than occasionally since 1900. The aim of this article is to understand how maximum life expectancy is achieved in the context of mortality transition. We explore this aim using the concepts of potential life expectancy, based on minimum rates at each age...
Article
Two corollaries of the rapid growth of Sydney, New South Wales, during the nineteenth century were degradation of the water supply and inadequate sanitation. Reform was slow to arrive: a new scheme began to supply clean water from 1886, while connections to the sewerage system increased gradually from less than 25% of the population in 1889 to 80%...
Article
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Objective: This study aims to examine the provision of assistance among older persons in the Philippines who experience difficulty with activities of daily living (ADLs) or instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs). Method: Data for this research are drawn from the 2007 Philippine Study on Aging (PSOA). Cross-tabulations and regression analys...
Article
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Background: models projecting future disease burden have focussed on one or two diseases. Little is known on how risk factors of younger cohorts will play out in the future burden of multi-morbidity (two or more concurrent long-term conditions). Design: a dynamic microsimulation model, the Population Ageing and Care Simulation (PACSim) model, si...
Chapter
Most Asian populations are ageing, but the degree varies considerably. Patterns of ageing since 1950 show six relatively homogeneous geographically-defined groups. The causes of ageing are demographic transition and emigration. Rapid economic development and demographic transition are associated with advanced ageing, while warfare and slow developm...
Article
Full-text available
MicSIMPOP is a microsimulation model aiming to model the health and associated care needs of the English population to 2040 and the impact of interventions for risk factor reduction, disease prevention and treatment. Modelled on a previous Australian microsimulation model DYNOPTASim, MicSIMPOP uses a discrete time approach with baseline data (and m...
Article
Full-text available
Mortality change in Australia since 1907 is analysed in the light of Epidemiologic Transition theory. Australia began the twentieth century in the second age of the Epidemiologic Transition, the Age of Receding Pandemics. Australia probably moved to the third, the Age of Degenerative and Man-Made Diseases before 1946, which is slightly in advance o...
Conference Paper
Mortality change in Australia since 1907 is analysed in the light of Epidemiologic Transition theory. Australia began the twentieth century in the second age of the Epidemiologic Transition, the Age of Receding Pandemics. In the early decades of the twentieth century, Australia was a leader in the Transition with a life expectancy about 4 years hig...
Article
Background: Explaining patterns in the sex ratio (male/female) of cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality would improve understanding of mortality transitions under modernisation. Little research has examined secular trends in this ratio across populations, taking age and cohort into account. We examine cohort effects in the ratios of CVD mortality...
Article
Full-text available
Few studies of the association between social networks (SN), social support (SS), and self-rated health (SRH) address the role of demography in determining that association. Yet demography defines social-structural context, differentiates family from friend networks, and influences network structures. This study examines the SN-SRH association thro...
Article
Full-text available
Few studies of the association between social networks (SN), social support (SS), and self-rated health (SRH) address the role of demography in determining that association. Yet demography defines social-structural context, differentiates family from friend networks, and influences network structures. This study examines the SN-SRH association thro...
Article
Social relationships are multifaceted, and different social network components can operate via different processes to influence well-being. This study examined associations of social network structure and relationship quality (positive and negative social exchanges) with mental health in midlife and older adults. The focus was on both direct associ...
Chapter
Demographic data suffer from sampling errors and from biases arising from coverage and content errors that may be systematic and noncompensating. Common and problematic errors for demographic estimation are those affecting the reporting of age, parity, and deaths. Age misreporting affects population counts and vital rates. Techniques of data evalua...
Article
Full-text available
This study contributes to expanding the knowledge of the health of older persons living in Indonesia, a country with limited welfare benefits. The research employs a variable, ‘self-rated health’ (SRH), to investigate socio-cultural factors linked to the health of older Indonesians. The data presented in this study are based on fieldwork collected...
Article
Full-text available
The negative association between education and mortality is well established in international research. The harmful effect of smoking on health is well known. However, the contribution of smoking to educational inequality in mortality varies across studies, and in some studies, the contribution is negligible. This paper demonstrates the use of an a...
Article
Continuing rapid changes in the level and pattern of mortality require that forecasts are available that are timely, relevant and reliable. This paper evaluates a previous forecast of the mortality and longevity of Australian seniors, both in terms of the validity of the chosen method – the Booth–Maindonald–Smith (BMS) variant of Lee–Carter – and t...
Article
Full-text available
The negative association between education and mortality is well established in international research. The harmful effect of smoking on health is well known. However, the contribution of smoking to educational inequality in mortality varies across studies, and in some studies, the contribution is negligible. This paper demon- strates the use of an...
Article
Full-text available
Few studies of the association between social networks (SN), social support (SS), and self-rated health (SRH) address the role of demography in determining that association. Yet demography defines social-structural context, differentiates family from friend networks, and influences network structures. This study examines the SN-SRH association thro...
Article
Full-text available
Article
Evidence-based policy depends on the availability of high-quality research that is relevant to the population. This study aimed to identify the available data on the health of older Indigenous Australians in population-based longitudinal studies of ageing. Evaluation of the Dynamic Analyses to Optimise Ageing Project (DYNOPTA) dataset that has pool...
Article
Full-text available
Using the age- and sex-specific data of 14 developed countries, we compare the point and interval forecast accuracy and bias of ten principal component methods for forecasting mortality rates and life expectancy. The ten methods are variants and extensions of the Lee-Carter method. Based on one-step forecast errors, the weighted Hyndman-Ullah metho...
Article
Full-text available
Ethnic differentials in the timing of family formation in Fiji cannot be adequately explained by hypotheses commonly used to explain differentials in fertility behaviour, namely the norms, characteristics, minority group and interaction hypotheses. The norms hypothesis explains a large part of the differentials, but socio-economic factors and chang...
Article
Full-text available
Ethnic differentials in the timing of family formation in Fiji cannot be adequately explained by the norms, characteristics, minority group, and interaction hypotheses. The missing dimensions are socioeconomic level within ethnicity and time, including the marriage market effects of fertility transition. A complex interaction of factors involves un...
Article
Full-text available
Ethnic differentials in the timing of family formation in Fiji cannot be adequately explained by the norms, characteristics, minority group, and interaction hypotheses. The missing dimensions are socioeconomic level within ethnicity and time, including the marriage market effects of fertility transition. A complex interaction of factors involves un...
Article
Full-text available
Using the age- and sex-specific data of 14 developed countries, we compare the short- to medium-term accuracy of ten principal component methods for forecasting mortality rates and life expectancy. These ten methods include the Lee-Carter method and many of its variants and extensions. For forecasting mortality rates, the weighted Hyndman-Ullah met...
Article
Full-text available
Continuing increases in life expectancy beyond previously-held limits have brought to the fore the critical importance of mortality forecasting. Significant developments in mortality forecasting since 1980 are reviewed under three broad approaches: expectation, extrapolation and explanation. Expectation is not generally a good basis for mortality f...
Article
Age–sex-specific population forecasts are derived through stochastic population renewal using forecasts of mortality, fertility and net migration. Functional data models with time series coefficients are used to model age-specific mortality and fertility rates. As detailed migration data are lacking, net migration by age and sex is estimated as the...
Chapter
Age reporting among respondents in the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey is examined, using the first round of data collected in 1998. The sample design limits the use of traditional methods for assessing the accuracy of age reporting, and innovative methods are adopted. Only the sample aged 100+ is representative of the population at t...
Chapter
Age reporting among respondents in the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey is examined, using the first round of data collected in 1998. The sample design limits the use of traditional methods for assessing the accuracy of age reporting, and innovative methods are adopted. Only the sample aged 100+ is representative of the population at t...
Article
Objective: To demonstrate the value of comparing data from multiple cohort studies using the example of self-rated health (SRH). Methods: Seven Australian cohort studies including comparable data on SRH were identified. Comparisons of the distributions of SRH were conducted, and logistic regression was used to evaluate age, sex and education effect...
Article
Full-text available
We compare the short- to medium-term accuracy of five variants or extensions of the Lee-Carter method for mortality forecasting. These include the original Lee-Carter, the Lee-Miller and Booth-Maindonald-Smith variants, and the more flexible Hyndman-Ullah and De Jong-Tickle extensions. These methods are compared by applying them to sexspecific pop...
Article
Full-text available
The Lee-Carter (LC) method of mortality forecasting is well known and widely used. Two recent variants are the Lee-Miller (LM) variant and the Booth-Maindonald-Smith (BMS) variant. Both aim to improve the performance of the method. These two variants and the original Lee-Carter method are evaluated using data for twenty populations for 1900-2001, w...
Article
Full-text available
Most estimates and projections of life expectancy are based on period measures. This paper presents forecasts of cohort life expectancy for older generations derived using the Lee-Carter method of forecasting mortality. These cohort measures point to more years of life expectancy than the commonly-cited current period measures. The new forecasts al...
Article
Full-text available
Knowledge of population futures is central to a wide range of policy and planning issues. Population projections have traditionally been the source of this knowledge, but projections are merely what-if scenarios, based on unrealistic assumptions without claim as to their probability of occurrence. Stochastic population forecasts provide a best esti...
Article
Objectives: To use new methodology to forecast mortality for use in projections of the elderly population of Australia and to compare them with official projections. Method: The Lee-Carter method is applied to data for Australian females and males for 1968–2000 to forecast mortality to 2031. These forecasts are used with standard population project...
Article
The Economics of Seasonal Cycles by Jeffrey A. Miron. Pp. xviii+225. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1996. ($US30.00 cloth) WEB INFORMATION: http://mitpress.mit.edu/book-home.tcl?isbn=O262133237.
Article
Full-text available
The Lee-Carter method of mortality forecasting assumes an invariant age component and most applications have adopted a linear time component. The use of the method with Australian data is compromised by significant departures from linearity in the time component and changes over time in the age component. We modify the method to adjust the time com...
Article
Full-text available
Application of the Lee-Carter method to Australian data shows that model assumptions are not always met because of age-time interactions. The Lee-Carter method is adapted to take account of departures from linearity in the dominant time component and the failure to satisfy the assumption of an invariant age component. The most significant adaptatio...
Chapter
Demographic data suffer from sampling errors and from biases arising from coverage and content errors that may be systematic and noncompensating. Common and problematic errors for demographic estimation are those affecting the reporting of age, parity, and deaths. Age misreporting affects population counts and vital rates. Techniques of data evalua...
Article
Full-text available
L'età media al primo figlio (MAFB) è stimata dalle proporzioni di donne in parità zero utilizzando il metodo di Hajnal per stimare l'età media al matrimonio (SMAM). Il metodo è applicato alle isole Cook, alle isole Fiji e alla popolazione indiana delle Fiji, e ai Kiribati fornendo per la prima volta stime del MAFB e dell'intervallo protogenesico (m...
Article
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Article
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To examine the relationship between sociodemographic factors (sex, age, education, occupation and region of birth) and absolute levels of energy, fat and fibre intake in adults at the national level. The 1983 National Dietary Survey of Adults (NDSA), covering six Australian capital cities, collected food and nutrient intake data using the 24-hour r...
Article
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This paper presents results of a content analysis of all articles published in theJournal of the Australian Population Association during its sixteen-year history, 1984–99. The findings show that geographic focus, principal subject area and analytical procedure did not change significantly over the period. About three-quarters of articles focused e...
Article
Full-text available
All available data for thirteen Pacific Island nations are used in a comparative analysis of suicide levels and characteristics. Age, sex and method of suicide are examined in detail. Global comparison shows Pacific rates are amongst the highest reported. Female youth rates exceed male rates in Western Samoa and amongst Fiji Indians. Method of suic...
Article
Full-text available
http://www.jps.auckland.ac.nz/document/?wid=5038
Technical Report
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Women in Pacific Island countries play an important role in agricultural and natural resource management and in contributing to food and livelihood security. Yet, programmes and policies related to agriculture, fisheries, forestry, natural resource management and rural enterprises do not always take women's roles sufficiently into account given the...