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This paper presents a study on the relationship between income inequality and mortality by states in Malaysia. Even though there are several persuasive evidences to support the association between income inequality and mortality, research in this field is still progressing. This study aims to develop a new mortality model that incorporates the income inequality variable and subsequently to forecast the mortality rates for Malaysia until 2024. The data used are Gini Index and mortality rates for each state of Malaysia which are extracted from the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) from 2007 to 2018. Using the Pearson correlation coefficient, this study identifies the effects and significant level of income inequality on mortality for each state in Malaysia respectively. This study extends the Lee-Carter mortality model by including the new variable of income inequality factor to estimate the mortality rates. Next, ARIMA model is used to forecast the mortality rates from 2016-2024. Results show that almost all states in Malaysia experience positive relationship between income inequality and mortality. This indicates that most states in Malaysia which have higher value of the age component relative to Gini Index would positively affect the mortality experience significantly. The extended Lee-Carter model is deemed to fit the mortality rates better as compared to the original model. The forecasted results show that children and elderly are expected to have lower mortality rates as compared to adults. This study provides better understanding on the effect of income inequality on mortality and produces a reliable mortality forecasts reflecting the income inequality factor for Malaysian population. The development of new mortality model can benefit actuaries in pricing the insurance and annuity products appropriately and strengthen the social security and public health of Malaysia effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As of March 2022, there have been 3,116,564 infections and 32,827 coronavirus-related deaths reported in the country since the pandemic began on 1st March 2022. This drastic increase in numbers has been alarming everyone. Malaysia has successfully handled the first and second waves of the COVID-19 cases. However, the recent wave of omicron variants in Malaysia sees a massive increase in COVID-19 infections. Therefore, forecasting plays a vital role in determining preparedness for the current pandemic. This study aims to understand the behaviour of the current infection trend and provide valuable information to the authority to prevent future spikes of active cases. In this paper, the SIR model (Susceptible - Infected Recovered) was used to estimate the active cases in Malaysia. This forecast is essential to prepare for the current wave outbreak. Besides that, the number of susceptible can be reduced via vaccinations to reduce future outbreaks. Therefore, with proper planning and execution, the inoculation rates in Malaysia proved to be successful, and the impact of mass vaccination would be seen in future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]