Mortality model component specification — vrc

Create a mortality component specification for vrcm(). This is a light wrapper around a formula describing additional mortality covariates (beyond the always-included conflict proxy).

The formula should not include conflict; conflict is included in the core Stan model as beta_conf.

Usage

vrc_mortality(
  formula = ~1,
  conflict = c("fixed", "region"),
  time = c("national", "region")
)

Arguments

formula: A model formula. The default ~ 1 specifies no additional covariates.
conflict: How to model the conflict effect in the mortality component. Use "fixed" for one effect shared across regions (per cause), or "region" for partial pooling (random slopes) by region (per cause).
time: How to model time variation in the mortality component. "national" uses a single random walk shared across regions (per cause). "region" adds region-specific random walk deviations around the national trend.

Value

An object of class vrc_mortality.