Description: This article presents recent perspectives on the understanding and measurement of pandemic risk.

Description: Comparison of healthcare costs for early retirees versus active workers in the same age band. When adjusted for age, there is not a significant difference in costs between each group.

Description: The purpose of this document is to provide information regarding the specifications of the model to be produced in connection with the project, Population Aging, Implications for Asset Values, and Impact for Pension Plans: An International Study. The authors are seeking input from actuaries and others interested in this work.

Description: U.S. population mortality rates by gender and single year of age for calendar years 2000-2014. To develop these rates, the SOA relied upon data furnished by the Centers for disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the Social Security Administration.

Description: Explores how blended families are different and the same. Provides survey data on how people feel about responsibility in different types of families. Provides stories of experience.

Description: Identifies current trends and considerations when setting the mortality improvement assumption for individual life insurance in the US.

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: 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: This is a continuation of an article published for the speculative future contest in 2023. It mentions how the collapse of China would cause a global recession in 2029 due to the current and predicted geopolitical climate in 2023.

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