Quality Control Charts as a Tool to Correct Adult Mortality Under-Registration

Traditional demographic methods correct adult mortality by assuming a uniform distribution of the errors in between censuses. We propose the use of quality control charts to detect which years should be corrected at a larger scale than others within inter-census periods. This methodology proves new in the area and highly improves the current available demographic methods, both for all age groups, including the oldest ages usually hard to correct with traditional methods. We used Colombian official death records from 1950 to 2010, as recorded from the Latin American Human Mortality Database (www.lamortalidad.org), and found that this methodology will enhance current available demographic methods.