Local Modeling of U.S. Mortality Rates: A Multiscale Geographically Weighted Regression Approach

The majority of work in mortality modeling involves factor-based approaches, with little use of information on the determinants and interpretable risk factors of mortality. At the same time, in the demographic community, there has been a lack of research attention towards the study of mortality from a spatial perspective. This work is a step towards addressing this, by providing an investigation of the presence of spatial variability in the determinants of mortality rates. Specifically, by using the age-adjusted mortality rates of the counties of the contiguous United States, this research applies a multiscale geographically weighted regression (MGWR) approach to examine the spatial variations in the relationships between mortality rates and a diverse group of associated determinants. The results of this study demonstrate that the MGWR approach produces an interpretable and accurate account of the global, regional and local effects acting on the mortality rates of the United States. Thus, this work lays the groundwork for the consideration of spatial varying effects on mortality rates which operate at different spatial scales.