Consistent Projection of Mortality for Subnational Areas Using a Logistic Curve

Thomas M. McDevitt, U.S. Census Bureau

Ensuring consistency in projected future mortality between subnational and national populations is one of the challenges involved in making subnational projections. This paper discusses the use of linear and logistic extrapolation of life expectancy at birth (e(0)), and the use of two methods based on the logistic, for ensuring consistency in projected mortality across subnational areas and between subnational and national projected mortality. Reported under-5 mortality from Demographic and Health Surveys is used to estimate e(0) at three points in time, and estimated regional e(0)s for the third time period are used to assess the relative goodness of fit of projected regional e(0)s based on estimates from the two prior time points. Comparisons are made using alternative projection models for regions in 12 developing countries not seriously affected by HIV/AIDS. A fixed-slope logistic model performs better than alternatives considered.