The International Mortality and Longevity Symposium 2014 attracted not only actuaries but global health researchers, statisticians, epidemiologists, gerontologists, policymakers and social scientists from around the world to Birmingham's Aston University.
Topics included big health data; prevention and mortality; forecasting models; medical advances and conceptualisation of ageing; cause-of-death modelling; the Continuous Mortality Investigation and the Actuarial Research Centre (ARC); social and economic inequalities and longevity; and obesity. PhD students, including two from ARC, presented their latest findings during breakfast meetings.
Dinner speaker Sir Harry Burns, former chief medical officer for Scotland and now professor of global public health at the University of Strathclyde, discussed the economic and psychosocial causes of chronic poor health, and made a compelling case for directing public resources at the promotion of societal wellbeing rather than the mitigation of symptoms.
Conference abstracts will be available to download on the IFoA website shortly.