rogers@ANTHRO.UTAH.EDU (Alan R. Rogers) (07/13/90)
Does anyone know how access to resources (or wealth in humans) affects age-
specific mortality rates? Is it reasonable to assume that an extra unit of
resource will decrease the mortality of a 20 year old by the same amount as
that of a 40 year old? Or is the effect more nearly proportional to the
original mortality rate? In other words, do we want a model of the form
u(x,w) = u(x,0) + f(w) (1)
or of the form
u(x,w) = u(x,0) f(w) (2)
or maybe even
1 - u(x,w) = (1 - u(x,0)) f(w) (3)
where u(x,w) is the mortality rate of individuals of age x and "wealth" w,
and f(w) is the effect of wealth on mortality. Is there some better
alternative?
Alan Rogers
INTERNET: rogers@anthro.utah.edu
USMAIL : Dept. of Anthropology, Univ. of Utah, S.L.C., UT 84112
PHONE : (801) 581-5529