A birth-life-death model for planning and evaluation of health services programs

Abstract

A Markov model of the birth-life-death process is developed to relate two input decision variables—specific mortality rates by age and group of diseases and specific fertility rates by age—to output criteria involving life expectancy, time-dependent structure of mortality by age and cause of death, and other time-dependent demographic structures. Experimentation in the form of computer simulation is used to determine the input of health services programs in terms of the output criteria when the cost of a program and its estimated alteration of the input variables are known.