Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference:	GR/S80547/01
Title:	Modelling the demographic & financial effects of medical advances
Principal Investigator:	Waters, Professor H
Other Investigators:	Wekwete, Dr C MacDonald, Professor A S
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Department:	S of Mathematical and Computer Sciences
Organisation:	Heriot-Watt University
Scheme:	Standard Research (Pre-FEC)
Starts:	03 October 2004	Ends:	02 October 2007	Value (£):	133,361
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:	Statistics & Appl. Probability
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:	Financial Services
Related Grants:
Panel History:
Summary on Grant Application Form
In the UK, and in many other countries, mortality rates are decreasing rapidly, especially at older ages. This is due to a combination of many factors: for example: (a) preventative measures such as screening programmes for breast cancer, (b) environmental factors such as greater awareness of the importance of diet and exercise and of the dangers of smoking; (c) medical advances such as the development of drugs to treat HIV and high cholesterol levels; and (d) improved techniques for transplant surgery. These, very welcome, developments have serious financial implications. Not only are there high direct costs, for example the cost of developing drugs, but there are also costs arising from higher life expectancy of individuals, for example in the provision of pensions and long-term care. For a long time, actuaries have attempted to project future improvements in life expectancy but with limited success, and as a result the true cost of providing pensions has in the past been underestimated. As the developments described above gather pace, it will be essential to be able to model their impact on the future course of mortality, or else the very ability of pensions providers to promise any level of pension for life may be in doubt.The aim of this research is to select a small number of important conditions where recent advances can be expected to have a major impact on their epidemiology, to develop detailed mathematical models of these conditions so that the demographic and financial impacts of these advances can be measured.
Key Findings
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Further Information:
Organisation Website:	http://www.hw.ac.uk