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We study the changes of accidental and premature mortality over time, using a parametric model for life table distribution at deaths. The model is a mixture of three distributions: for infant and child mortality, for accidental and premature mortality, and for adult mortality. The model offers the advantage of computing, in explicit form, the three component's contributions to life expectancy. All parameters in the model have a demographic interpretation, so it is easy to compare different populations. The mixture distribution model is tested using Swedish raw data from the Human Mortality Database and then fitted for different countries. In general our results show that, over time, the premature mortality function becomes flatter and more symmetric, and its mode shifts progressively. This implies that almost entirely the accidental mortality has disappeared, while the premature mortality cannot be neglected. We also observe that its contribution to explain life expectancy decreases in the last century, but in recent years it starts to grow. This means that the shape of the distribution of death is changed: after a compression of deaths around adult mode, we note a shifting on older ages, so premature mortality needs to compensate the left asymmetry in the curve.

premature mortality, mixture model, mortality components, skew normal