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Home < Joint Summer School of the IUSSP and the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR)

Joint Summer School of the IUSSP and the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) : Frontiers of Demographic Research on Mortality and Longevity

25 July - 2 August 2005 (Sunday free)

Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR), Rostock (Germany)

Lecturers, topics and time courses schedule

July 25-30 (Monday through Saturday):

1) Ronald Lee: Economic consequences of mortality decline
2) Yasuhiko Saito: Disability and Longevity. Computing health expectancy using Japan as an example
3) Alberto Palloni: Aging in developing countries
4) Jacques Vallin & Vladimir Shkolnikov: Comparative mortality analysis: making use of available data
5) Graziella Caselli: Demographic Analysis of Centenarians
6) Anatoli Yashin: Models of Disability and Mortality

Sunday free
(optional boat trip on the Warnow to Warnemünde will be offered by MPIDR)

August 1-2 (Monday and Tuesday):
7) Zeng Yi: Healthy Longevity in China
8) James Vaupel: Models of Negative and Positive Senescence

Recruitment of the students

- Applicants should either be enrolled in a PhD program (those well on their way to completion will be favored) or have received their PhD not more than 3 years ago.

- A maximum of 25 students will be admitted.

- The selection will be made by Max Plank Institute and IUSSP based on the applicants' scientific qualifications.

Time schedule

- Applications must be sent to the MPIDR. All applications must be made by email. Begin your email message with a statement saying that you apply for the Joint IUSSP-MPIDR Summer School. You also need to include the following two documents, either in the text of the email or as attached documents.
(1) A two-page curriculum vitae, including a list of your scholarly publications.
(2) A one-page statement of your research and how it relates to the Joint IUSSP-MPIDR Summer School.

- Send your email to Heiner Maier: office@imprs-demogr.mpg.de
- Application deadline is 31 December 2004. Late applications cannot be considered.
- The MPIDR will screen the applications and forward all applications and a selection of suitable candidates to the IUSSP by 31 January 2005
- The IUSSP will approve this list by 28 February 2005
- Applicants will be informed of their acceptance by 15 March 2005

Scholarships

The following bodies have awarded 21 scholarships each worth 1500 euro:
- IUSSP: 5 scholarships
- MPIDR: 10 scholarships
- CICRED: 1 scholarship
- INED: 5 scholarships
These scholarships will cover (extra) transportation costs (possible from Tours) plus daily expenses in Rostock.

Program and courses organisation

The activity will be organised as following:

· Morning lectures: 9.00 --12.00
· Break for exercises, local group discussions and readings
· Evening lectures and general discussion: 17.00 - 19.00

Lectures Program

Ronald LEE
"Economic consequences of mortality decline"

1. Why do we age? Evolutionary perspectives, including the role of intergenerational transfers.
2. Mortality, disability, and the economic life cycle: economic perspectives on individual aging.
3. Mortality decline and population aging at the aggregate level.
4. Economic consequences of an aging population.

Yasuhiko SAITO (Assistant: Agnes Lièvre)
"Disability and Longevity. Computing health expectancy, using Japan as an example"

1. Brief introduction of disability and longevity in Japan. Introduction of data available in Japan for disability and longevity.
2. Introduction to concept of health expectancy.
3. Brief introduction of methods used to compute health expectancy
4. Computing health expectancy using prevalence based method
5. Computing health expectancy using incidence based method
6. Discussion of results and application of results

Alberto PALLONI
"Aging in developing countries"

1. The talk will attempt to show that the aging experience in some developing countries is unique and will highlight three several dimension of this uniqueness.
2. From (a) it will draw inferences regarding what is expected to take place in terms of health status and other conditions of the elderly in the next 50 years.
3. It will present findings from 7 surveys in capital cities in Latin America, one national survey in Mexico and one in Puerto Rico to demonstrate some of the points highlighted in (2) above. Of special importance is the relation between health status and conditions in early childhood.
4. It will also draw from the experience of mortality in the continent to provide additional supporting evidence than demonstrates the uniqueness of the aging process in the region of Latin America.

Jacques VALLIN and Vladimir SHKOLNIKOV
“Comparative mortality analysis: making use of available data”

1. Analysis of convergence and divergence in mortality : convergence and divergence, a new approach to health transition theory; measuring inequality; exercise on inequality measurement.
2. Analysis of causes of death : trends, problems and solutions; an example of reconstruction in West Germany; what causes of death can tell about the life expectancy changes; the lowest mortalities.

Graziella CASELLI
"Demographic Analysis of Centenarians"

1. The population of centenarians and its emergence in low mortality countries and to answer the following questions. Is the population of centenarians comparable from one country to another? Is the pattern of emergence unique to certain countries? What data are available and what is their quality?
2. Validation method of centenarians.
3. Analysis of geographical differences in the number of centenarians compared with elderly mortality geographical differences.
4. Analysis measures and methods (the Centenarian Doubling Time; Centenarian Rate and alternative ratios; Death records, as an indirect source to measure the number of centenarians.
5 Explore centenarians' sex ratio from country to country, venturing to understand the change in sex ratio as the successive cohorts grow older.

Anatoli YASHIN
"Models of Disability and Mortality"

1. Age patterns and time trends in human mortality and disability in developed countries. Plasticity of mortality curve. Animal studies of aging mortality and longevity. Stress experiments. When modelling is crucial. Approaches to better understanding mechanisms generating data and prediction of future trends.
2. New ideas in heterogeneity and frailty modelling. Problems and their solutions.
3. Semiparametric models.
4. Genetic studies of centenarians.
5. Evolutionary aspects of senescence.

Zeng YI: (assisted by Dr. Zhang Zhen and Li Qiang (post-doc at MPIDR in 2005).
"Healthy Longevity in China"

1. A New Method for Correcting Underestimation of Disabled Life Expectancy and Application to Chinese Oldest-Old.
2. Fixed Attribute Dynamics and Multivariate Statistical Analysis on Association between Early Life Experiences and Healthy Longevity at Old Ages.
3. ProFamy: Method, Software and Applications for Projections of Households and Elderly Living Arrangement.

James VAUPEL:
"Evolutionary Models of Age-Trajectories of Mortality"

1. What are the fundamental evolutionary forces that have shaped the age-trajectory of mortality for humans--and for various other species? That is, why do we live as long as we live?
2. What are the forces that have shaped the age-trajectory of fertility? That is, why do we experience sexual maturity when we do and why do we have the number of babies we have? (The answers, it turns out, influence age-trajectories of mortality.)
3. What are the forces that have shaped the age-trajectory of growth? That is, why do we get as big as we do and why are babies as big as they are? (The answers, it turns out, influence age-trajectories of mortality).
4. For some species mortality continues to decrease after maturity and fertility continues to increase. How can such "negative senescence" be modeled and understood?
5. Aging is sometimes considered to be "optimal" in the sense that increases in mortality with age are the price paid for higher levels of fertility. Aging, however, may be the result of deleterious mutations that act at older ages. Which explanation best accounts for the data?