Back to Search Start Over

Temporal Clustering of the Causes of Death for Mortality Modelling

Authors :
Nicholas Bett
Juma Kasozi
Daniel Ruturwa
Source :
Risks, Vol 10, Iss 5, p 99 (2022)
Publication Year :
2022
Publisher :
MDPI AG, 2022.

Abstract

Actuaries utilize demographic features such as mortality and longevity rates for pricing, valuation, and reserving life insurance and pension contracts. Capturing accurate mortality estimates requires factual mortality assumptions in mortality models. However, the dynamic and uncertain nature of mortality improvements and deteriorations necessitates better approaches in tracking mortality changes, for instance, using the causes of deaths features. This paper aims to determine temporal homogeneous clusters using unsupervised learning, a clustering approach to group causes of death based on (dis)similarity measures to set representative clusters in detection and monitoring death trends. The causes of death dataset were derived from the World Health Organization, Global Health Estimates for males and females, from 2000 to 2019, for Kenya. A hierarchical agglomerative clustering technique was implemented with modified Dynamic Time Warping distance criteria. Between 6 and 14 clusters were optimally achieved for both males and females. Using visualisations, principal clusters were detected. Over time, the causes of death trends of these clusters have demonstrated a correlated association with mortality and longevity rates, rationalizing why insurance and pension offices may include this approach as a preliminary step to undertake mortality and longevity modelling.

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
22279091
Volume :
10
Issue :
5
Database :
Directory of Open Access Journals
Journal :
Risks
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
edsdoj.93ab1fdeb131490b9f490317c08e231c
Document Type :
article
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.3390/risks10050099