Population tables

The ratetable tutorial

The most annoying part of the relative survival analysis is to put the population tables into the right format.
The relsurv package uses the object ratetable that originates from the survival package. This object can
encompass any country particularity and the relative survival analysis is thus possible regardless of the format in
which your country publishes the rates. However, creating the ratetable object is rather awkward and often
the most difficult part of the relative survival analysis. To help you through the process,
the package offers some functions - a thorough description is given in the tutorial. In short, you can:

• form objects from your own tables: transrate
• form objects from tables available on the web: transrate.hld,transrate.hmd
• join two ratetable objects into one: joinrate

Short tutorial: PDF.

Population tables on the web

• Human mortality database: HMD
  

  All countries are available in the same format. Registration needed (free).

• Human life-table database: HLD
  

  A wider collection then HMD, but the formats can differ.

• Population tables in R format on the web site of our Biostatistical centre.
  

  The tables are obtained from HMD or HLD, not very regularly updated.