Description: This article summarizes the meeting of actuaries and demographers at Harvard University Nov. 29-Dec. 1, 1973 to discuss demographic projections and related actuarial topics.

Description: The percentage of the population who are obese has grown dramatically worldwide over the last several decades, although stabilizing recently in the United States. Studies have found the effects on mortality to be inconsistent and controversial because of methodological differences and the complexity of the relationship between obesity and mortality. This paper discusses this relationship and sheds light on the likely effects of this epidemic. Issues associated with the so-called obesity-mortality paradox, where mortality experience is lower for those individuals who are overweight and in some who are obese compared with the mortality of those in the normal weight category, are examined. Although certain recently reported studies of the relationship between mortality and obesity indicate that obesity is related to a reduced percent of additional mortality, this may in part be due to the shorter average time that those currently obese have been exposed to their condition. Nevertheless, the amount of health care costs and rates of disability associated with being obese are significant, contributing to the increase in overall health care costs as they become more numerous and age. Although obesity is being addressed with a great deal of activity and publicity, they will continue to prove challenging for individuals and society to manage and overcome.

Description: Presented at October 1985 Annual Meeting. Discusses how much of the sex mortality differential is due to smoking habits, how convincing are existing studies, what do worldwide trends in mortality suggest about the effects of smoking and on mortality, how well do insurers classify the smoking risk, and the United States Life Tables for 1979-81 paper by Myers and Bayo.

Description: Panel session discussion of how universal access, quality of care, and controlling health care costs are being addressed in Latin American countries.

Description: This paper examines the demographic effects of the aging 'baby boom' generation on the North American group insurance market in terms of projected growth rates for the labor force and for several related population-base quantities. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1983, Vol. 35.

Description: This paper examines demographic and economic trends of the 1970's and suggests implications with regards to the life insurance industry. Some of the trends include changes in distribution of income, age, family size, inflation, population size, environmental instability and there is discussion of some of the underlying causes of these developments.

Description: This article discusses the sources of the information in the Social Security Death Master File and the potential utility of this information for demographic studies of centenarians and near-centenarians.

Description: Presented at Living to 100 symposium, January 2011. Using data from Social Security's Death Master File, this study shows that mortality deceleration in humans observed at advanced ages may be an artifact caused by age exaggeration, data heterogeneity or use of improper estimates of hazard rate. The phenomenon of mortality deceleration at older ages vanishes for datasets of higher data quality.

Description: Abstract: The percentage of the population who are obese has grown dramatically worldwide over the last several decades, although stabilizing recently in the United States. Studies have found the effects on mortality to be inconsistent and controversial because of methodological differences and the complexity of the relationship between obesity and mortality. This paper discusses this relationship and sheds light on the likely effects of this epidemic. Issues associated with the so-called obesity-mortality paradox, where mortality experience is lower for those individuals who are overweight and in some who are obese compared with the mortality of those in the normal weight category, are examined. Although certain recently reported studies of the relationship between mortality and obesity indicate that obesity is related to a reduced percent of additional mortality, this may in part be due to the shorter average time that those currently obese have been exposed to their condition. Nevertheless, the amount of health care costs and rates of disability associated with being obese are significant, contributing to the increase in overall health care costs as they become more numerous and age. Although obesity is being addressed with a great deal of activity and publicity, they will continue to prove challenging for individuals and society to manage and overcome.

Description: This session from the 1995 SOA Boston Meeting covers an overview of demographics in the U.S., the impact that population demographics have on sales and product design. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 21, No. 4b.