title: Lifesaving explains mortality decline with time.
abstract: Mortality rates of human populations in developed countries are declining with time. We show that this effect can be explained via a 'lifesaving' methodology. Our approach is based on considering a non-homogeneous Poisson process of potentially harmful events. Each of these events can be 'cured' with a given probability or can result in a termination of the Poisson process (death) with a complementary probability. A lifesaving ratio, defining the corresponding relative increase in life expectancy for homogeneous and heterogeneous populations is analyzed. Some generalizations are discussed. Several simple examples are considered.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mathematical Statistics, University of the Free State, P.O. Box 339, 9300 Bloemfontein, Republic of South Africa. FinkelM.SCI@mail.uovs.ac.za
authors.forename: M S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Finkelstein
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D008017:Life Expectancy / Q000639:trends*; D008954:Models, Biological; D015233:Models, Statistical; D016012:Poisson Distribution; D011787:Quality of Health Care / Q000639:trends*; D013269:Stochastic Processes