Applications of the Heligman/Pollard model mortality schedule.

"The United Nations working manual for MORTPAK-Lite, a software package for demographic measurement, includes among its 16 computer programs a routine (UNABR) that graduates a set of age-specific probabilities of dying...for the standard set of five-year age groups into a set of single-year probabilities of dying. The graduation is effected with an eight-parameter 'law of mortality' known as the Heligman/Pollard model mortality schedule. Model mortality schedules...are useful in mortality analysis and forecasting. Several such applications are illustrated in this article: a historical time-series analysis, a forecasting application, studies of causes of death, spatial differences and sex-specific mortality disaggregated by race." The geographical focus is on the United States, England, and Australia.