Forecasting life expectancy in São Paulo city, Brazil, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic

• Autor(a) principal: Maria Laura Lopes Miranda
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da UFMG
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/1843/60064
• topic: mortality forecasting; covid-19; Lee-Carter; Lee-Miller; São Paulo; Mortalidade; COVID-19 (Doença); São Paulo (SP); Demografia

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a significant rise in mortality rates, interrupting historical trends and making it challenging to forecast future life expectancy levels in many places. São Paulo, the first city in Brazil to report a COVID-19 case and death saw a decrease of over four years in life expectancy at birth for males and over three years for females between 2019 and 2021. São Paulo has been at the forefront of the demographic transition in the country and experienced a non-linear mortality decline over the 20th century. The city's historical mortality trajectory and the disruptive effects of COVID-19 have introduced challenges to mortality forecasting. In this study, we used a unique dataset starting from 1920 to forecast life expectancy in São Paulo until 2050 using the Lee-Carter (LC) and Lee-Miller (LM) methods. Our methodology included a combination of forecasts based on different baseline periods, ranging from 1920 to 1995 until 2021, and six scenarios for post-pandemic mortality levels. Based on 73,200 simulations for each year between 2022 and 2050, we synthesized the resulting life expectancy forecasts into median values and 95% prediction intervals (PI). By 2050, we predict that life expectancy at birth in the city will reach approximately 81.9 years for men and 88.9 years for women. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, our results presented significantly higher forecasts than what was predicted by the most recent forecast in 2013. Additionally, we estimated within the 95% PI that by 2045, both male and female life expectancy in São Paulo could reach the levels of the best-performing countries.