This monograph reviews the epidemiological, demographic, and biological basis of population models of human mortality. These investigations were motivated by the desire to better understand the regularities of survival processes among adults -- especially at extreme late ages where empirical data is currently limited. The monograph discusses biological mechanisms, which shape the age-patterns of mortality. The effects of an individual health state, susceptibility to diseases and death, or physical frailty on changes in late age survival are also investigated.

Book & Disk. This volume is an array of demographic data which can often be pictured in an intelligible and graphically striking way by a shaded contour map. The data might pertain to population levels or to rates of fertility, marriage, divorce, migration, morbidity, or mortality. Most often the data are structured by age and time (eg: age-specific death rates over time). Shaded contour maps permit visualisation of such demographic surfaces and offer a panoramic view impossible to obtain from the usual graphs of levels or rates at selected ages over time or a selected times over age. Contour maps are particularly effective in highlighting patterns in the interaction of age, period, and cohort effects. This monograph presents a bouquet of shaded contour maps to suggest the broad potential of their use in population studies. The value of such maps lies in their substantive import. Graphic designs, E R Tufte concluded, should give "visual access to the subtle and difficult, that is, the revelation of the complex". Demographic surfaces can be particularly complex. A mortality surface, for example, might be defined over a century of age and a century of time, comprising 10,000 date points that may vary over four orders of magnitude. Shaded contour maps are an arresting, efficient, and clear means of giving demographers visual access to such data. William Playfair, the pioneer of graphic methods for presenting statistical data, argued that with a good visual display "as much information may be obtained in five minutes as would require whole days to imprint on the memory, in a lasting manner, by a table of figures". The 100 shaded contour maps in this monograph summarise more than a half million data points in a memorable, revealing manner.

This volume is a critical exposition of the data and analyses from a full decade of rigorous research into how age-related changes at the individual level, along with other factors, contribute to morbidity, disability and mortality risks at the broader population level. After summarizing the state of our knowledge in the field, individual chapters offer enlightening discussion on a range of key topics such as age trajectory analysis in select and general populations, incidence/age patterns of major chronic illnesses, and indices of cumulative deficits and their use in characterizing and understanding the detailed properties of individual aging. The book features comprehensive statistical analyses of unique longitudinal data sets including the unique resource of the Framingham Heart Study, with its more than 60 years of follow-up. Culminating in penetrating conclusions about the insights gained from the work involved, this book adds much to our understanding of the links between aging and human health.

This volume is a critical exposition of the data and analyses from a full decade of rigorous research into how age-related changes at the individual level, along with other factors, contribute to morbidity, disability and mortality risks at the broader population level. After summarizing the state of our knowledge in the field, individual chapters offer enlightening discussion on a range of key topics such as age trajectory analysis in select and general populations, incidence/age patterns of major chronic illnesses, and indices of cumulative deficits and their use in characterizing and understanding the detailed properties of individual aging. The book features comprehensive statistical analyses of unique longitudinal data sets including the unique resource of the Framingham Heart Study, with its more than 60 years of follow-up. Culminating in penetrating conclusions about the insights gained from the work involved, this book adds much to our understanding of the links between aging and human health.