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I strongly recommend Michael's article - [http://epc2010.princeton.edu/abstractViewer.aspx?submissionId=100690] I have read it quickly and will soon be looking at it again (but then, I know nothing about demography). I generally like percentiles rather than Pearsonian moments: so why do we not use L50, the median of life-lengths, rather than the expectancy, which is highly sensitive to extremes including infant mortality, centenarians and data-errors? If I had L10 and L90, that would have more meaning for me. (This is separate from the question whether when comparing different areas, one should go for the extremes or a percentile: again, for me the 10th and 90th percentiles would be more interesting than the extremes.) I agree with Jane that this could be a suitable topic for the Newsletter. But something more class-based would also be interesting: can we compare L10 and L90 for those at Y10 and Y90, the 10th and 90th percentiles of the income-distribution? Thinking more abstractly we have P(L,Y) which is the probability that somebody at the Y-th income percentile expires at age L. What shape is this curve, and how is it best summarised? Sorry, I prefer posing questions rather than providing answers. JOHN BIBBY On 10 November 2010 10:27, Michael Grayer <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > As John said: concentrating on extremes is not really helpful. The > methodology used to calculate life expectancy (at least the ones used by > ONS > [ > http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_other/GSSMethodology_No_33.pdf] > and the health observatories [ > http://www.sepho.org.uk/download.aspx?urlid=9847&urlt=1]) for such > small areas introduces quite a few artefacts into the estimates. These > predominantly manifest themselves in the form of over-estimates, because > there is no upper bound placed on the length of survival in the final age > group. I wrote a conference paper on this about a year ago which I hope to > have published---you can read the conference proceedings version of it > online [ > http://epc2010.princeton.edu/abstractViewer.aspx?submissionId=100690]. > There probably is a real, substantive gap in life expectancy, but 16.8 years > is most likely an over-estimate. A more conservative estimate would be > provided by taking the inter-quartile range, or some other measure which > drops the outliers. > > As for smaller areas, well, we'd all love to have them, but much smaller > scale than the ward-level and the numbers become so tiny that it really > is an exercise in getting blood out of a stone. After all, "life > expectancy" is a property of populations, not individuals, so a > reasonable level of aggregation has to be maintained for the figures to > be meaningful. > > I hope this is helpful information. > > Best wishes, > Michael. > > > On Wed, 2010-11-10 at 08:56 +0000, Martin Rathfelder wrote: > > I know about these thank you. What I want are ward level stats. Or > > smaller, I suppose, but the small area stats I have seen were very > > difficult to use because they didn't relate to any identifiable places. > > > > On 10/11/10 08:39, Potter, Lesley wrote: > > > http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/Product.asp?vlnk=8841 > > > > > > There is a collection of resources on life expectancy here, produced by > > > the Office for National Statistics, > > > Hope this is helpful, > > > Lesley > > > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: email list for Radical Statistics [mailto: > [log in to unmask]] > > > On Behalf Of Martin Rathfelder > > > Sent: 10 November 2010 08:32 > > > To: [log in to unmask] > > > Subject: Health inequality: > > > > > > There is, according to the local PCT, a 16.8 year gap in life > expectancy > > > > > > experienced by female residents who live in the Macclesfield Town > > > Tytherington area compared to those living in Crewe's Central and > Valley > > > > > > area > > > > > > This sort of local inforamtion is very useful politically. Does anyone > > > know of, or is anyone capable of producing, a convenient useful source > > > of such stuff? Ideally showing the most extreme disparities in close > > > proximity. > > > > > > I presume that the smaller the areas the greater the disparities. The > > > DPH in Huddersfield used to produce some good graphs showing the > > > contrasts between the two sides of the same road. > > > > > > Martin Rathfelder > > > Director > > > Socialist Health Association > > > 22 Blair Road > > > Manchester > > > M16 8NS > > > 0161 286 1926 > > > www.sochealth.co.uk > > > > > > If you do not wish to be on our mailing list please let us know and we > > > will remove you > > > > > > ****************************************************** > > > Please note that if you press the 'Reply' button your > > > message will go only to the sender of this message. > > > If you want to reply to the whole list, use your mailer's > > > 'Reply-to-All' button to send your message automatically > > > to [log in to unmask] > > > Disclaimer: The messages sent to this list are the views of the sender > > > and cannot be assumed to be representative of the range of views held > by > > > subscribers to the Radical Statistics Group. 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To find out more about Radical > Statistics and its aims and activities and read current and past issues of > our newsletter you are invited to visit our web site www.radstats.org.uk. > > > ******************************************************* > > > > > > > -- > > Martin Rathfelder > > Director > > Socialist Health Association > > 22 Blair Road > > Manchester > > M16 8NS > > 0161 286 1926 > > www.sochealth.co.uk > > > > If you do not wish to be on our mailing list please let us know and we > will remove you > > > > ****************************************************** > > Please note that if you press the 'Reply' button your > > message will go only to the sender of this message. > > If you want to reply to the whole list, use your mailer's > > 'Reply-to-All' button to send your message automatically > > to [log in to unmask] > > Disclaimer: The messages sent to this list are the views of the sender > and cannot be assumed to be representative of the range of views held by > subscribers to the Radical Statistics Group. To find out more about Radical > Statistics and its aims and activities and read current and past issues of > our newsletter you are invited to visit our web site www.radstats.org.uk. > > ******************************************************* > > ****************************************************** > Please note that if you press the 'Reply' button your > message will go only to the sender of this message. > If you want to reply to the whole list, use your mailer's > 'Reply-to-All' button to send your message automatically > to [log in to unmask] > Disclaimer: The messages sent to this list are the views of the sender and > cannot be assumed to be representative of the range of views held by > subscribers to the Radical Statistics Group. To find out more about Radical > Statistics and its aims and activities and read current and past issues of > our newsletter you are invited to visit our web site www.radstats.org.uk. > ******************************************************* > ****************************************************** Please note that if you press the 'Reply' button your message will go only to the sender of this message. If you want to reply to the whole list, use your mailer's 'Reply-to-All' button to send your message automatically to [log in to unmask] Disclaimer: The messages sent to this list are the views of the sender and cannot be assumed to be representative of the range of views held by subscribers to the Radical Statistics Group. To find out more about Radical Statistics and its aims and activities and read current and past issues of our newsletter you are invited to visit our web site www.radstats.org.uk. *******************************************************