Preston-Coale Method

The Preston-Coale method, also called the synthetic extinct generations method, estimates the completeness of death registration by rebuilding a population from the very deaths it records. Introduced by Samuel Preston and Ansley Coale in 1982, it uses the variable-r relations of a non-stable population to project each age group's future deaths forward, growth-adjust them, and accumulate them into the number of people who must currently be alive at each age. Comparing this implied population with the observed census count reveals what fraction of deaths the vital system actually captures.