Research

My work centres on formal demography and the measurement of health and mortality, with a particular focus on gender disparities, lifespan variability, and estimation sensitivity. I use mathematical and statistical methods alongside reproducible computing (primarily R) to tackle substantive demographic questions.

Core theme

Lifespan Variability & Inequality

Theoretical and empirical work on measures of lifespan dispersion — variance, standard deviation, Gini coefficient, e†, Keyfitz entropy, Theil index, threshold age, and modal age at death. Connects formal life-table mathematics to substantive questions about who benefits from longevity gains.

Core theme

Gender Gaps in Mortality & Health

Women live longer but spend more years in poor health. Disentangling the biological, social, and methodological explanations for this paradox — including the role of measurement error and self-reporting biases in health surveys — is central to my agenda.

Core theme

Health Expectancy Methods

Sensitivity and perturbation analysis of healthy life expectancy indicators across different measurement approaches (Sullivan vs. multi-state models) and data sources. Part of the ERC project Levels and Trends of Health Expectancy at VID/OeAW.

Core theme

Subgroup Mortality & Longevity

Selection effects, survival advantage, and mortality trajectories in specific population subgroups — including Brazilian Air Force officers (PhD work) and comparative analyses of high-longevity cohorts. Applications of competing-risks and frailty models.

Applied

COVID-19 & Population Mortality

Age and gender patterns in infection and fatality; indirect estimation of cumulative infection; vaccination and its impact on case fatality rates; demographic perspectives on pandemic excess mortality in Brazil and Europe.

Applied

Ageing in Brazil & Latin America

Demographic transition, population ageing, health inequality, and the limits of longevity in Brazil. Regional heterogeneity in mortality trends and the implications for public policy, pensions, and the healthcare system.

Code and replication materials are available on GitHub. Methods notes appear occasionally on the blog.