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Article: Cohort Life Tables
- Article from:
- Encyclopedia of Public Health
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COHORT LIFE TABLES
Life tables are used to describe the mortality experience of a population. Several summary statistics can be calculated using life tables, such as life expectancy at birth, a summary statistic which estimates longevity. The basic unit of a life table is the probability of dying at specific ages. There are two types of life tables, which can be distinguished by the methods used to calculate age-specific probabilities of death. Life tables for which age-specific probabilities of death are calculated using the number of deaths and population size in the current year are known as current, or period, life tables. For cohort, or generational, life tables, agespecific ...