Understanding provincial differentials in adult mortality in South Africa.

Abstract

This research focuses on estimating the levels, and understanding the differentials of adult mortality (generally, between the ages 15 to 60) within South Africa, across provincial boundaries. The cross-sectional study explores indirect methods of estimation, specifically through the Orphanhood method to determine conditional survivorship probabilities which can be used to estimate conditional levels of adult mortality, taking into consideration factors such as the changing impact of HIV/AIDS. In addition to this, an exploration of household deaths data is included in the efforts to provide a robust analysis of adult mortality estimates in producing a clearer lifetable from birth to 85+. Data used to determine such estimates as well as uncovering provincial differentials are obtained from the Community Survey of 2016 (CS 2016), published by Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) (2016). The 3 main data sets utilised includes the Person/Individual file; the Household Deaths file; and the Mortality file (Statistics South Africa, 2016). Essentially, the study seeks to understand the provincial differences in adult mortality, taking into consideration contextual impacts such as sociodemographic and socioeconomic factors. Underlying these impacts is a discussion on the determinants of health framework adapted from Mosley and Chen (1984) and more recently, the dynamics of adult mortality (Sartorius et al., 2013). In doing so, the study will seek to provide an understanding of the parameters of indirectly calculating adult mortality experienced in South Africa, and how these are affected by household data as opposed to individual data.