Overview

Several important differences in our approach to forecasting health relative to that of the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) project required development of algorithms for computation of initial conditions and small multiplicative adjustments to formulations.  Specifically, we forecast by country, we begin forecasts in the base year of 2010, and we maintain 5-year age categories.  Moreover, we have our own sources of data for GDP per capita and education attainment level, which we forecast using our own models.  The initial data we obtained from the GBD project provided country, sex, and cause specific mortality, but from the year 2008 (subsequently updated to 2010) and in slightly different age categories. ^[1]   This section details our approach to reconciling differences in initial data.

• Normalization and Scaling Factors
• Cause-specific Mortality: Infants and the Elderly