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The goal of vital is to allow analysis of demographic data using tidy tools.

Installation

You can install the stable version from CRAN:

pak::pak("vital")

You can install the development version from Github:

pak::pak("robjhyndman/vital")

Examples

First load the necessary packages.

vital objects

The basic data object is a vital, which is time-indexed tibble that contains vital statistics such as births, deaths, population counts, and mortality and fertility rates.

Here is an example of a vital object containing mortality data for Australia.

aus_mortality
#> # A vital: 300,879 x 8 [1Y]
#> # Key:     Age x (Sex, State, Code) [101 x 27]
#>     Year   Age Sex    State                      Code  Mortality Exposure Deaths
#>    <int> <int> <chr>  <chr>                      <chr>     <dbl>    <dbl>  <dbl>
#>  1  1901     0 female Australian Capital Territ… ACTOT         0        0      0
#>  2  1901     1 female Australian Capital Territ… ACTOT         0        0      0
#>  3  1901     2 female Australian Capital Territ… ACTOT         0        0      0
#>  4  1901     3 female Australian Capital Territ… ACTOT         0        0      0
#>  5  1901     4 female Australian Capital Territ… ACTOT         0        0      0
#>  6  1901     5 female Australian Capital Territ… ACTOT         0        0      0
#>  7  1901     6 female Australian Capital Territ… ACTOT         0        0      0
#>  8  1901     7 female Australian Capital Territ… ACTOT         0        0      0
#>  9  1901     8 female Australian Capital Territ… ACTOT         0        0      0
#> 10  1901     9 female Australian Capital Territ… ACTOT         0        0      0
#> # ℹ 300,869 more rows

We can use functions to see which variables are index, key or vital:

index_var(aus_mortality)
#> [1] "Year"
key_vars(aus_mortality)
#> [1] "Age"   "Sex"   "State" "Code"
vital_vars(aus_mortality)
#>        age        sex     deaths population 
#>      "Age"      "Sex"   "Deaths" "Exposure"

Plots

aus_mortality |> 
  filter(State == "Victoria", Sex != "total", Year < 1980, Age < 90) |>
  autoplot(Mortality) + scale_y_log10()

Life tables and life expectancy

# Life table for Victorian males in 2000
aus_mortality |>
  filter(State == "Victoria", Sex == "male", Year == 2000) |>
  life_table()
#> # A vital: 101 x 15 [?]
#> # Key:     Age x (Sex, State, Code) [101 x 1]
#>     Year   Age Sex   State Code       mx      qx    lx      dx    Lx    Tx    ex
#>    <int> <int> <chr> <chr> <chr>   <dbl>   <dbl> <dbl>   <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl>
#>  1  2000     0 male  Vict… VIC   4.91e-3 4.89e-3 1     4.89e-3 0.995  77.6  77.6
#>  2  2000     1 male  Vict… VIC   2.91e-4 2.91e-4 0.995 2.90e-4 0.995  76.6  77.0
#>  3  2000     2 male  Vict… VIC   3.51e-4 3.51e-4 0.995 3.49e-4 0.995  75.6  76.0
#>  4  2000     3 male  Vict… VIC   1.88e-4 1.88e-4 0.994 1.87e-4 0.994  74.6  75.0
#>  5  2000     4 male  Vict… VIC   1.55e-4 1.55e-4 0.994 1.54e-4 0.994  73.6  74.0
#>  6  2000     5 male  Vict… VIC   2.13e-4 2.13e-4 0.994 2.12e-4 0.994  72.6  73.0
#>  7  2000     6 male  Vict… VIC   1.80e-4 1.80e-4 0.994 1.79e-4 0.994  71.6  72.1
#>  8  2000     7 male  Vict… VIC   9.01e-5 9.01e-5 0.994 8.95e-5 0.994  70.6  71.1
#>  9  2000     8 male  Vict… VIC   1.21e-4 1.21e-4 0.994 1.20e-4 0.994  69.6  70.1
#> 10  2000     9 male  Vict… VIC   1.79e-4 1.79e-4 0.994 1.78e-4 0.993  68.6  69.1
#> # ℹ 91 more rows
#> # ℹ 3 more variables: rx <dbl>, nx <dbl>, ax <dbl>
# Life expectancy
aus_mortality |>
  filter(State == "Victoria", Sex != "total") |>
  life_expectancy() |>
  ggplot(aes(x = Year, y = ex, color = Sex)) +
  geom_line()

Smoothing

Several smoothing functions are provided: smooth_spline(), smooth_mortality(), smooth_fertility(), and smooth_loess(), each smoothing across the age variable for each year.

# Smoothed data
aus_mortality |>
  filter(State == "Victoria", Sex != "total", Year == 1967) |>
  smooth_mortality(Mortality) |>
  autoplot(Mortality) +
  geom_line(aes(y = .smooth), col = "#0072B2") +
  ylab("Mortality rate") +
  scale_y_log10()
#> Warning: Removed 1 row containing missing values or values outside the scale range
#> (`geom_line()`).

Mortality models

Several mortality models are available including variations on Lee-Carter models (Lee & Carter, JASA, 1992), and functional data models (Hyndman & Ullah, CSDA, 2007).

fit <- aus_mortality |>
  filter(State == "Victoria", Sex != "total") |>
  model(
    lee_carter = LC(log(Mortality)),
    fdm = FDM(log(Mortality))
  )
fit
#> # A mable: 2 x 5
#> # Key:     Sex, State, Code [2]
#>   Sex    State    Code  lee_carter     fdm
#>   <chr>  <chr>    <chr>    <model> <model>
#> 1 female Victoria VIC         <LC>   <FDM>
#> 2 male   Victoria VIC         <LC>   <FDM>

Models are fitted for all combinations of key variables excluding age.

fit |> 
  select(lee_carter) |>
  filter(Sex == "female") |> 
  report()
#> Series: Mortality 
#> Model: LC 
#> Transformation: log(Mortality) 
#> 
#> Options:
#>   Adjust method: dt
#>   Jump choice: fit
#> 
#> Age functions
#> # A tibble: 101 × 3
#>     Age    ax     bx
#>   <int> <dbl>  <dbl>
#> 1     0 -4.15 0.0157
#> 2     1 -6.40 0.0218
#> 3     2 -7.01 0.0195
#> 4     3 -7.32 0.0180
#> 5     4 -7.36 0.0159
#> # ℹ 96 more rows
#> 
#> Time coefficients
#> # A tsibble: 120 x 2 [1Y]
#>    Year    kt
#>   <int> <dbl>
#> 1  1901 111. 
#> 2  1902 111. 
#> 3  1903 109. 
#> 4  1904 100. 
#> 5  1905  98.8
#> # ℹ 115 more rows
#> 
#> Time series model: RW w/ drift 
#> 
#> Variance explained: 72.99%
fit |> select(lee_carter) |> autoplot()

fit |> select(lee_carter) |> age_components()
#> # A tibble: 202 × 6
#>    Sex    State    Code    Age    ax     bx
#>    <chr>  <chr>    <chr> <int> <dbl>  <dbl>
#>  1 female Victoria VIC       0 -4.15 0.0157
#>  2 female Victoria VIC       1 -6.40 0.0218
#>  3 female Victoria VIC       2 -7.01 0.0195
#>  4 female Victoria VIC       3 -7.32 0.0180
#>  5 female Victoria VIC       4 -7.36 0.0159
#>  6 female Victoria VIC       5 -7.63 0.0172
#>  7 female Victoria VIC       6 -7.48 0.0123
#>  8 female Victoria VIC       7 -7.73 0.0149
#>  9 female Victoria VIC       8 -8.08 0.0178
#> 10 female Victoria VIC       9 -7.81 0.0114
#> # ℹ 192 more rows
fit |> select(lee_carter) |> time_components()
#> # A tsibble: 240 x 5 [1Y]
#> # Key:       Sex, State, Code [2]
#>    Sex    State    Code   Year    kt
#>    <chr>  <chr>    <chr> <int> <dbl>
#>  1 female Victoria VIC    1901 111. 
#>  2 female Victoria VIC    1902 111. 
#>  3 female Victoria VIC    1903 109. 
#>  4 female Victoria VIC    1904 100. 
#>  5 female Victoria VIC    1905  98.8
#>  6 female Victoria VIC    1906 104. 
#>  7 female Victoria VIC    1907  97.0
#>  8 female Victoria VIC    1908 100. 
#>  9 female Victoria VIC    1909  89.6
#> 10 female Victoria VIC    1910  91.2
#> # ℹ 230 more rows
fit |> forecast(h = 20) 
#> # A vital fable: 8,080 x 8 [1Y]
#> # Key:           Age x (Sex, State, Code, .model) [101 x 4]
#>    Sex    State    Code  .model      Year   Age          Mortality   .mean
#>    <chr>  <chr>    <chr> <chr>      <dbl> <int>             <dist>   <dbl>
#>  1 female Victoria VIC   lee_carter  2021     0 t(N(-6.5, 0.0084)) 0.00144
#>  2 female Victoria VIC   lee_carter  2022     0  t(N(-6.6, 0.017)) 0.00140
#>  3 female Victoria VIC   lee_carter  2023     0  t(N(-6.6, 0.026)) 0.00135
#>  4 female Victoria VIC   lee_carter  2024     0  t(N(-6.7, 0.034)) 0.00131
#>  5 female Victoria VIC   lee_carter  2025     0  t(N(-6.7, 0.043)) 0.00127
#>  6 female Victoria VIC   lee_carter  2026     0  t(N(-6.7, 0.052)) 0.00124
#>  7 female Victoria VIC   lee_carter  2027     0  t(N(-6.8, 0.061)) 0.00120
#>  8 female Victoria VIC   lee_carter  2028     0  t(N(-6.8, 0.071)) 0.00116
#>  9 female Victoria VIC   lee_carter  2029     0   t(N(-6.8, 0.08)) 0.00113
#> 10 female Victoria VIC   lee_carter  2030     0   t(N(-6.9, 0.09)) 0.00110
#> # ℹ 8,070 more rows

The forecasts are returned as a distribution column (here transformed normal because of the log transformation used in the model). The .mean column gives the point forecasts equal to the mean of the distribution column.