# UNCERTAINTY INTERVALS--POPULATION & FUNCTIONAL FORECASTS

> **NIH NIH R01** · NATIONAL OPINION RESEARCH CENTER · 1992 · $169,241

## Abstract

Official population forecasts, such as those produced by the U.S. Office of
the Actuary, Social Security Administration, for the Bureau of the Census,
provide the user with three forecast variants: high, middle, and low.
However, the probability with which the future fails between the high and
the low numbers is not reported and is not even known by the government
forecasters.  The proposed research will show how to produce high and low
numbers that will encompass the future with know probabilities.  Such
probabilistic prediction intervals can be produced for national populations
to replace or complement the current forecast variants produced by the
government agencies.  A novel feature in the proposed research is that we
extend our past results to the so-called functional forecasts, i.e., to
forecasts of some functions of the population vector.  An example of such
a (random) function is the number of disabled in a given time.  Public and
private decision-makers rely on various demographic forecasts to plan for
the future and to anticipate the costs of new programs to care for the
nation's aging population.  Better societal and private decisions can by
made if the decision-makers are aware of the extent of the uncertainty of
the forecasts.  The aims of the proposed research, namely to improve our
understandings of the limitations of government forecasts, are intended to
lead both to better forecasts and to better use the forecasts by decision
makers.

The research will produce a computer program that will carry out the
stochastic propagation of error, which is necessary for assessing the
uncertainty of the forecasts.  The program will be usable by health
agencies preparing forecasts based on the cohort-component method.  The
research will also produce a monograph that will describe the statistical
theory of error propagation for these forecasts and will provide  guidance
for the use of the computer programs.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 3122127
- **Project number:** 1R01AG010156-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** NATIONAL OPINION RESEARCH CENTER
- **SAM.gov UEI:** MPYFY5UMSDP4
- **Principal Investigator:** BRUCE D SPENCER
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 1992
- **Award amount:** $169,241
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 1992-07-01 → 1995-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/3122127

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 3122127, UNCERTAINTY INTERVALS--POPULATION & FUNCTIONAL FORECASTS (1R01AG010156-01A1). Retrieved via MORVS 2026-10-25 from https://api.morvs.ai/grant/nih/3122127. Licensed CC0.

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