Vital Signs: Life Expectancy – by ZIP Code
VITAL SIGNS INDICATOR
Life Expectancy (EQ6)
FULL MEASURE NAME
Life Expectancy
LAST UPDATED
April 2017
DESCRIPTION
Life expectancy refers to the average number of years a newborn is expected to live if mortality patterns remain the same. The measure reflects the mortality rate across a population for a point in time.
DATA SOURCE
State of California, Department of Health: Death Records
(1990-2013)
No link
California Department of Finance: Population Estimates
Annual Intercensal Population Estimates (1990-2010)
Table P-2: County Population by Age (2010-2013)
http://www.dof.ca.gov/Forecasting/Demographics/Estimates/
U.S. Census Bureau: Decennial Census
ZCTA Population (2000-2010)
http://factfinder.census.gov
U.S. Census Bureau: American Community Survey
5-Year Population Estimates (2013)
http://factfinder.census.gov
CONTACT INFORMATION
vitalsigns.info@mtc.ca.gov
METHODOLOGY NOTES (across all datasets for this indicator)
Life expectancy is commonly used as a measure of the health of a population. Life expectancy does not reflect how long any given individual is expected to live; rather, it is an artificial measure that captures an aspect of the mortality rates across a population that can be compared across time and populations. More information about the determinants of life expectancy that may lead to differences in life expectancy between neighborhoods can be found in the Bay Area Regional Health Inequities Initiative (BARHII) Health Inequities in the Bay Area report at http://www.barhii.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/barhii_hiba.pdf. Vital Signs measures life expectancy at birth (as opposed to cohort life expectancy). A statistical model was used to estimate life expectancy for Bay Area counties and ZIP Codes based on current life tables which require both age and mortality data. A life table is a table which shows, for each age, the survivorship of a people from a certain population.
Current life tables were created using death records and population estimates by age. The California Department of Public Health provided death records based on the California death certificate information. Records include age at death and residential ZIP Code. Single-year age population estimates at the regional- and county-level comes from the California Department of Finance population estimates and projections for ages 0-100+. Population estimates for ages 100 and over are aggregated to a single age interval. Using this data, death rates in a population within age groups for a given year are computed to form unabridged life tables (as opposed to abridged life tables). To calculate life expectancy, the probability of dying between the jth and (j+1)st birthday is assumed uniform after age 1. Special consideration is taken to account for infant mortality.
For the ZIP Code-level life expectancy calculation, it is assumed that postal ZIP Codes share the same boundaries as ZIP Code Census Tabulation Areas (ZCTAs). More information on the relationship between ZIP Codes and ZCTAs can be found at http://www.census.gov/geo/reference/zctas.html. ZIP Code-level data uses three years of mortality data to make robust estimates due to small sample size. Year 2013 ZIP Code life expectancy estimates reflects death records from 2011 through 2013. 2013 is the last year with available mortality data. Death records for ZIP Codes with zero population (like those associated with P.O. Boxes) were assigned to the nearest ZIP Code with population. ZIP Code population for 2000 estimates comes from the Decennial Census. ZIP Code population for 2013 estimates are from the American Community Survey (5-Year Average). ACS estimates are adjusted using Decennial Census data for more accurate population estimates. An adjustment factor was calculated using the ratio between the 2010 Decennial Census population estimates and the 2012 ACS 5-Year (with middle year 2010) population estimates. This adjustment factor is particularly im
Querying over HTTP
Splitgraph serves as an HTTP API that lets you run SQL queries directly on
this data to power Web applications. For example:
curl https://data.splitgraph.com/sql/query/ddn \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d@-<<EOF
{"sql": "
SELECT *
FROM \"bayareametro-gov/vital-signs-life-expectancy-by-zip-code-xym8-u3kc\".\"vital_signs_life_expectancy_by_zip_code\"
LIMIT 100
"}
EOFSee the Splitgraph documentation
for more information.
