SVD-Component Mortality Model using Child or Child/Adult Mortality as Inputs

Published article: A General Age-Specific Mortality Model With an Example Indexed by Child Mortality or Both Child and Adult Mortality - Clark, S.J. Demography (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-019-00785-3

Preprint: A General Age-Specific Mortality Model with An Example Indexed by Child or Child/Adult Mortality.

Also see: A Singular Value Decomposition-based Factorization and Parsimonious Component Model of Demographic Quantities Correlated by Age: Predicting Complete Demographic Age Schedules with Few Parameters.

Overview

This GitHub repository contains code for the model and the LaTeX source files for the manuscript that describes the model, published in the journal Demography

All of the code used to create the model is contained in the R Markdown file Rmd/SVD-Comp.Rmd. The code saves R Data objects containing the data, various intermediate results, and outputs in RData. It also saves tables and figures for the manuscript in tables and figures. It is compiled and rendered into the PDF Rmd/SVD-Comp.pdf that contains all the results. NB: The Human Mortality Database web site used to store the full dataset in a file with a standard name that could be automatically downloaded; that is no longer the case in 2022 after an update. Now, you must download the data manually; follow the directions in the 2022 version of the Rmd file. There is a 2024 update now as well.

The manuscript itself is composed of two LaTeX files in manuscript - one for the main manuscript and one for the appendices. They cross reference each other so you need to compile both and then recompile both to get all the references updated.

Finally, there is a simple package to implement the final method - svdComp5q0. This is stored in package as an RStudio package project.

General Requirements: Software, etc.

This material has been prepared on an Apple Macintosh running Mac OS High Sierra. All software necessary is open source and free, including

• R: Download
• RStudio: Download
• LaTeX via
  • MacTex: Download
  • TeXShop: Download

Installing svdComp5q0 R Package

• Install and load the devtools package
• Use devtools to install the svdComp5q0 R package directly from GitHub using this command.
  install_github(repo = "sinafala/svdComp5q0")

To Run the Markdown File

• If you're a regular GitHub user, clone the svd-comp repository
• If you're not a regular GitHub user, go to the upper right corner of this web page and click 'Clone or Download' and in the small window that appears click 'Download Zip'. After the .zip file has downloaded, move it somewhere conveneint and unzip it.
• Use RStudio to open Rmd/SVD-Comp.Rmd

Directory structure

• Rmd contains the R Markdown file that executes the main code - SVD-Comp.Rmd.
• R contains R code
  • logQuad implementation code from Wilmoth et al. There is a directory that contains the relevant papers describing the Log Quad model.
  • getHMD.R contains uncommented code used to download and parse the HMD life tables from the HMD web site.
• RData contains a set of intermediate and final data sets, empty until populated by the code.
• data contains the HMD data downloaded from the HMD web site.
  • non-HMD life tables contains the data used to test the model on other countries. The .csv files are read by Rmd/SVD-Comp.Rmd to conduct the comparisons.
  • HMD is where the downloaded HMD data are stored, empty until populated by the code.
• tables contains a set of text files, .txt and .csv, that contain the contents of all the tables in the manuscript. These are produced by code in the R Markdown file Rmd/SVD-Comp.Rmd.
• figures contains a set of PDF files that contain the figures included in the manuscript. These are produced by code in the R Markdown file Rmd/SVD-Comp.Rmd.
• manuscript contains two .tex files and related .bib and .bst files for the main manuscript and appendices.
• package contains an RStudio package project with all of the materials used to create the svdComp5q0 R package that implements the model.