All You Can Fit: Statistical Challenges in Estimating the Human Rate of Aging

The individual rate of aging is defined as the relative derivative of one's risk of death with respect to one's age. The b-hypothesis, formulated by Vaupel (2010), postulates that all humans share the same rate of aging. In order to check this hypothesis given the existing aggregate data on human mortality, we present several statistical approaches, their advantages and shortcomings, as well as some preliminary conclusions.