Mortality Seminar Series: Exploring the Future; Defining the Questions

Download the presentations below, or see the recording.

Jon Forster - Incorporating model uncertainty into mortality forecasts

Andrew Cairns and Torsten Kleinow - Mortality and smoking prevalence

Cathryn Lewis - Estimating risk profiles for common diseases from environmental and genetic factors

Whilst the ageing population and increased longevity are welcome indicators of health and societal improvements, they present new challenges for business and government alike. Mortality investigations are the cornerstone of actuarial science but also constitute an area with considerable scope for interdisciplinary studies with medical, social science and demographic fields.

Recognising this, the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries called for research proposals which would consider one, or more, of the following key areas:

• understanding the drivers for change in mortality and longevity
• how will successive cohorts differ and why?
• how far can the approach to drilling down to individualised risk help in exploring the connections between populations and individuals, including the impact on mortality of biological and life style risk factors such as nutrition, exercise, and alcohol consumption?

After a rigorous selection process, the following projects were selected for funding:

• Bayesian Modelling of Mortality Projection Uncertainty - University of Southampton and Barnett Waddingham LLP 
• Mortality Models for Multiple Populations using Covariates - Heriot-Watt University 
• Genetic risk profiling for common diseases - King’s College London

The findings of these projects will be presented at the third event in our mortality seminar series, Exploring the future; defining the questions, at Staple Inn Hall.  

The speakers will be Jon Forster for the University of Southampton, Torsten Kleinow for Heriot-Watt University and Cathryn Lewis, Professor of Genetic Epidemiology and Statistics, King’s College, London.

This event should interest all members working in health care, life insurance, general insurance, policy and pensions.