There is evidence of a prospective association between wellbeing and health outcomes including disease risk and longevity. The aim of this thesis was firstly to further explore whether wellbeing is a risk factor for specific chronic physical diseases, and secondly, to identify potential mediators and moderators of the association between wellbeing and disease risk or longevity. Chapter 1 provides an overview of research into associations between wellbeing and physical health. In addition, we outline theoretical models of how the experience of high wellbeing might impact physical health. In chapters 2 and 3, we build on research into wellbeing and chronic physical disease risk. In these chapters, we tested whether the association between wellbeing and disease risk was similar across different types of disease, and, whether different theoretical domains of wellbeing varied in their association with disease risk. We found particularly strong associations - that were not explained by demographic or health behaviour differences - between higher wellbeing and lower risk of arthritis, diabetes or chronic lung disease. In chapter 4, we further explore the association between wellbeing and arthritis risk using mediation analysis. Specifically, we tested whether this association was mediated by inflammatory biomarkers. We found that the biomarker C-reactive protein accounted for a small proportion of the association between wellbeing and a reduced risk of arthritis. The focus of the next two chapters was on potential moderators of the association between wellbeing and mortality risk. In chapter 5, we examined whether the association between higher wellbeing and lower mortality risk varied across individualist and collectivist cultures. We found a significant interaction between individualism and wellbeing such that the association between wellbeing and risk of mortality from cardiovascular disease was stronger in more individualistic countries. In chapter 6, we examined how positive affect (a subdomain of wellbeing), interacted with another psychosocial factor, namely subjective stress. Here, we tested Pressman and Cohen's (2005) stress buffering hypothesis that positive affect may be most strongly related with health under stressful conditions. In support of this hypothesis, we found that the association between positive affect and all-cause mortality risk was stronger in people reporting higher stress. In the final chapter, we summarise our findings, discuss the limitations of our approach and make recommendations for future research.

The Environmental Kuznets Curve is an inverted U-shaped relationship which demonstrates how environmental degradation increases as countries begin to develop and lowers as they become wealthier. The classical EKC measures the effects of GDP per capita (a country’s wealth) on pollu-tion. This paper is a study of the connection of a number of factors- GDP per capita, fossil fuels, al-ternative and nuclear energy, rural population and life expectancy at birth to the Environmental Kuznets Curve. Two econometric approaches are applied in order to test whether the variables have a more pronounced linear or quadratic form. Four income groups of countries are investigated in order to check if the state of development plays a crucial role in environmental deterioration. The results of the study point out that EKC does not apply for the chosen variables. From the regression for GDP, however, it can be concluded that EKC forms in 1990s.

Under det gångna århundradet ökade den förväntade livslängden avsevärt såväl i Sverige som i övriga världen. 1900-talets förbättrade livslängd drevs inledningsvis av en minskad barnadödlighet medan de senare årtiondena kännetecknades av minskad dödlighet i höga åldrar. En åldrande befolkning innebär ökade krav på sjukvård, äldreomsorg och inte minst pensionssystem. Pålitliga prognoser för vår framtida livslängd behövs för att beräkna de resurser som nämnda verksamheter kommer att ta i anspråk och utgör förutsättningen för en rättvis prissättning av försäkringsprodukter med levnadsrisk. Lee-Carter-modellen är en av vår tids tongivande modeller för mortalitetsprognostisering. Modellen används här för att göra livslängdsprognoser utifrån svenska mortalitetsdata; prognoserna jämförs sedan med observerade utfall. Mot bakgrund av resultatet diskuteras levnadsrisk med fokus på pensioner. Inte oväntat presterar prognoserna ingen felfri bild av verkligheten och prognosfelet varierar i storlek mellan skattningarna; att använda dem som underlag för pensionsberäkningar hade i förlängningen varit ohållbart. Exemplet illustrerar på samma gång vår osäkerhet inför framtidens livslängdsutveckling och svårigheten i att prognostisera den. / During the past century, Sweden along with many other countries experienced a sharp decline in mortality rates. The increased life expectancy was initially propelled by mortality reductions among infants and subsequently by a survival improvement in advanced ages. An ageing population has large implications for those providing services to the elderly, such as medical care and pensions, whilst also addressing the need for accurate and reliable mortality forecasts and projection methods. The Lee-Carter model is the current gold standard for mortality forecasting and has been widely adopted in several studies. Here, the model is applied on Swedish mortality data; the projections are then compared to the observed lifespan development. Against this backdrop, a discussion on longevity risk in pensions schemes follows. The forecasts performed in this study do not perfectly reflect the observed mortality change in the examined period; furthermore, the variation of the estimation errors limits the actuarial value of the projections. The findings illuminate the uncertainty that surrounds our future life expectancy as well as the difficulties associated with forecasting it.

La mortalité aux jeunes âges devenant de plus en plus faible, l’augmentation de l’espérance de vie est de plus en plus dépendante des progrès en mortalité aux âges avancés. L’espérance de vie à 65 ans et à 85 ans n’a cependant pas connu un rythme de progression continu depuis les trois dernières décennies. Ces changements dans l’évolution de l’espérance de vie proviennent de changements dans les tendances de certaines causes de décès et de leurs interactions. Ce mémoire analyse la contribution des causes de décès aux changements qu’a connus l’espérance de vie, mais aussi l’évolution spécifique des taux de mortalité liés aux principales causes de décès au Canada entre 1979 et 2007. Finalement, une analyse de l’implication de ces changements dans un contexte de transition épidémiologique sera réalisée, par un questionnement sur le fait que l’on assiste ou non au passage de certaines pathologies dominantes à d’autres. La réponse à ce questionnement se trouve dans l’étude de l’évolution par âge et dans le temps des causes de décès. Les résultats montrent que les progrès en espérance de vie à 65 ans et à 85 ans sont encore majoritairement dus à la diminution de la mortalité par maladies cardiovasculaires. Toutefois, ces dernières causes de décès ne sont pas les seules à contribuer aux progrès en espérance de vie, puisque les taux de mortalité dus aux dix principales causes de décès au Canada ont connu une diminution, bien qu’elles n’aient pas toutes évolué de la même manière depuis 1979. On ne semble ainsi pas passer d’un type de pathologies dominantes à un autre, mais à une diminution générale de la mortalité par maladies chroniques et à une diversification plus importante des causes de décès à des âges de plus en plus avancés, notamment par la diminution des «grandes» causes de décès. / With the decrease of mortality at younger ages, gain in life expectancy is heavily dependent on the progress in old age mortality. However, over the last three decades, life expectancies at 65 and 85 years old have not experienced a constant rate of progress. Changes in life expectancy progress come from changes in specific causes of death trends and their interactions. The present thesis studies the contribution of causes of death on the changes in life expectancies and the trends in death rates of specific causes of death in Canada between 1979 and 2007. An analysis of those changes in an epidemiological transition context has also been done by questioning whether or not we are witnessing a shift from certain dominant diseases to others. This questioning will be answered by studying variation in the causes of death by age and over time. The results of this study show that progress in life expectancies at 65 and 85 years old are still mainly due to the decrease in cardiovascular mortality. However, cardiovascular diseases are not the only causes of death to contribute to the progress in life expectancy. Since 1979, mortality rates from the ten leading causes of death in Canada have all declined but in different ways. Thus, there does not seem to be a shift in the dominant causes of death towards others in Canada, but there is a general mortality decline from chronic diseases and a greater diversification of causes of death at older ages.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Karolinska institutet, 2007. / Härtill 4 uppsatser.

Thesis (M.S.)--Air Force Institute of Technology, 2008. / Title from title page of PDF document (viewed on: Dec 10, 2009).

Thesis (Doctor of Philosophy)--Miami University, Dept. of Educational Leadership, 2009. / Title from second page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. Xx-Xx).

This paper studies the differences and similarities between the discrete annuity divisor of the income pension compared to the continuous annuity divisor of the premium pension in Sweden. First discrete and continuous annuity divisors are compared and found to be equivalent given the same underlying mortality. The income divisor is based on observed mortality in a period setting while the premium divisor which is based on projected mortality in a cohort setting. The expected performance of the two methods is studied by constructing prediction intervals based on Lee-Carter models with either a Binomial or Poisson distribution. Prediction intervals are constructed using either residual bootstrap or parametric bootstrap. The premium annuity divisor is found to outperform the income annuity divisor, there is a large risk that the latter underestimates the future mortality. / Den här uppsatsen studerar skillnader och likheter mellan inkomstpensionens diskreta delningstal och premiepensionens kontinuerliga delningstal i Sverige. Först jämförs diskreta och kontinuerliga delningstal och finns vara likvärdiga när de baseras på samma dödlighet. Inkomstpensionens delningstal är baserad på observerad period-dödlighet medan premiepensionens delningstal är baserad på projekterad kohort-dödlighet. Prediktionsintervall används för att skatta hur bra de två metoderna är. Med hjälp av Lee-Carter-modellen baserad på antingen poissonfördelning eller binomialfördelning konstrueras prediktionsintervall. Bootstrap, antingen parametrisk eller baserad på residualerna, används för att skapa prediktionsintervallen. Premiumpensionens delningstal stämmer väl överens med prediktionsintervallen medan det för inkomstpensionens delningstal finns en stor risk att framtida dödlighet underskattas.

The objective of this thesis is to find patterns trends and assumptions for mortality vs. age prediction. Based on the analysis of trends in the already extinct cohorts, the most suitable models for estimating the future development of mortality among surviving cohorts are selected. This thesis compares real data extinct cohorts with balanced data Gompertz-Makehamovy function. The research and analysis is focused on the specifics of cohort mortality from the age of 90. The last part of this thesis illustrates comparison between real data of extinct cohorts with DeRaS model outputs. The selection of Kannisto and Thatcher as the optimal model is presented in the form of graphical outputs indicating the cohort life expectancy of men and women aged 90 years.

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