BMC Public Health 2005, 5:65 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/5/65 (a) Kyushu Shikoku Osaka city Hokkaido Tokyo Nagoya city 0 100 200 Kilometers FMiagpuprineg2of health expectancy for women Mapping of health expectancy for women. Map of Japan (a) and health expectancy at 65 years (HE65) of women by municipality (b). Municipalities (N = 3361) are classified into quintiles according to HE65, and are colored accordingly. 69, 70–74, 75–79, and 80+ years [23]. Although most municipalities (N = 2823, 84.0%) had their own insurance unions, there were 61 insurance alliances man- aged with neighbouring municipalities. In these cases, SCR of the alliance was calculated and used as that of the municipalities for HE estimation. There was substantial variation in the population size among municipalities, ranging from only a few hundred to one million, and the certification rate in municipalities with a small population size showed extreme fluctuation. To correct the fluctuation of SCR, Bayesian SCR was esti- mated using hierarchical Poisson regression and Markov (b) HE65 (years), women 14.84 - 17.34 - 17.84 - 18.25 - 18.67 - 20.53 Page 4 of 9 (page number not for citation purposes)