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Recent trends in life expectancy across high income countries: retrospective observational study.

ABSTRACT: OBJECTIVES:To assess whether declines in life expectancy occurred across high income countries during 2014-16, to identify the causes of death contributing to these declines, and to examine the extent to which these declines were driven by shared or differing factors across countries. DESIGN:Demographic analysis using aggregated data. SETTING:Vital statistics systems of 18 member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. PARTICIPANTS:18 countries with high quality all cause and cause specific mortality data available in 2014-16. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES:Life expectancy at birth, 0-65 years, and 65 or more years and cause of death contributions to changes in life expectancy at birth. RESULTS:The majority of high income countries in the study experienced declines in life expectancy during 2014-15; of the 18 countries, 12 experienced declines in life expectancy among women and 11 experienced declines in life expectancy among men. The average decline was 0.21 years for women and 0.18 years for men. In most countries experiencing declines in life expectancy, these declines were predominantly driven by trends in older age (?65 years) mortality and in deaths related to respiratory disease, cardiovascular disease, nervous system disease, and mental disorders. In the United States, declines in life expectancy were more concentrated at younger ages (0-65 years), and drug overdose and other external causes of death played important roles in driving these declines. CONCLUSIONS:Most of the countries that experienced declines in life expectancy during 2014-15 experienced robust gains in life expectancy during 2015-16 that more than compensated for the declines. However, the United Kingdom and the United States appear to be experiencing stagnating or continued declines in life expectancy, raising questions about future trends in these countries.

SUBMITTER: Ho JY

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6092679 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Recent trends in life expectancy across high income countries: retrospective observational study.

Ho Jessica Y JY Hendi Arun S AS

BMJ (Clinical research ed.) 20180815

<h4>Objectives</h4>To assess whether declines in life expectancy occurred across high income countries during 2014-16, to identify the causes of death contributing to these declines, and to examine the extent to which these declines were driven by shared or differing factors across countries.<h4>Design</h4>Demographic analysis using aggregated data.<h4>Setting</h4>Vital statistics systems of 18 member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.<h4>Participants</h4>18 ...[more]

PMID: 30111634

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Project description:OBJECTIVE:To quantify and compare the contribution of 306 diseases and injuries to the changes in health adjusted life expectancy at birth (HALE0) between 1990 and 2013. DESIGN:Retrospective demographic analysis based on aggregated data and using life table technique, Sullivan method, and decomposition method for differences in health expectancy. SETTING:The globe, 21 regions, and 187 countries, covered in the Global Burden of Disease Study (GBD) 2013. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES:Cause specific contribution to changes in HALE0 between 1990 and 2013 in terms of mortality effect, disability effect, and total effect. RESULTS:Between 1990 and 2013, global HALE0 increased by 5.31 years for males and 5.73 years for females. The cross national Gini coefficient of HALE0 for both sexes combined decreased by 15.22% from 0.0736 to 0.0624. HALE0 declined in 11 countries during the period, predominantly owing to HIV/AIDS except in Belize, Belarus, and Paraguay. Controlling communicable, maternal, neonatal, and nutritional diseases accounted for 56.47% (3.10 years) of changes in HALE0 for both sexes combined, followed by non-communicable diseases (30.05%; 1.65 years) and injuries (13.67%; 0.75 years). Globally, HIV/AIDS caused the biggest reduction in HALE0 (-0.28 years) and mainly afflicted residents in southern (-7.86 years), western (-1.53 years), and eastern (-1.38 years) sub-Saharan Africa. Diabetes had the second biggest negative total effect on changes in HALE0 (-0.12 years), which was quite widespread across regions. Despite their positive total effect in high income regions, such non-communicable diseases as ischaemic heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, and hypertensive heart disease had a negative total effect in many low and middle income regions. Mortality reduction was the predominant driver (93.62%; 5.14 years) for improvement in HALE0, accompanied by an increase of 0.80 years in life expectancy lived with disability at birth. Only 44 (27%) of 163 causes at level 3 in the GBD cause hierarchy influenced changes in HALE0, mainly or only through disability. CONCLUSIONS:Between 1990 and 2013, the globe made achievements in not only promoting population health as a whole but reducing health inequality between countries. This study pinpoints the priority diseases and injuries for altering the declining health trend in 11 countries, for curbing the epidemic of non-communicable diseases in low and middle income countries, and for promoting compression of morbidity worldwide. The detailed country specific decomposition results of effects of diseases and injuries on change in population health will further facilitate the development of national health policies.

Project description:BackgroundAs society ages, promoting the health of the extra years of life is of paramount importance for health, social care and pension provision. Increases in life expectancy in the UK and elsewhere have slowed in recent years, but the reasons for this are unclear. No formal comparison of trends in healthy life years between the UK and the other countries of the EU28 in recent times has been published. These countries are geographically proximate, and share many social, cultural and demographic properties, making them interesting and useful comparators, especially as the UK prepared to leave the European Union in 2020.MethodsWe calculated sex-specific healthy life years (HLY), unhealthy life years (ULY), mild and severe ULY at birth and age 65 using life tables and age-specific prevalence of activity limitation amongst the EU28 between 2008 and 2016 from EuroHex. Trends in life expectancy, HLY, ULY and proportion of life spent healthy (HLY%) were compared. We then decomposed HLY temporal changes into relative effects of changes in healthy life and mortality, by age group.FindingsLife expectancy at birth, and age 65, in the UK were increasing rapidly in 2008 but slowed around 2011. Germany, Portugal and France showed evidence of a similar slowing. HLY at birth in the UK decreased, whereas it increased in most EU28 countries. The UK experienced a period of absolute expansion of unhealthy life in both sexes. The reduction in HLY at birth in the UK was mainly attributable to increases in unhealthy life in younger age groups.InterpretationThe UK's performance relative to the other countries of the EU28 was poor after 2011, combining static life expectancy and reductions in healthy life years. These trends suggest that the UK government's Ageing Society Grand Challenge (to increase the healthy life expectancy by five years by 2035) will be difficult to attain.FundingNational Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Policy Research Programme conducted through the NIHR Older People and Frailty Policy Research Unit, PR-PRU-1217-21502. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care.

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Recent trends in life expectancy across high income countries: retrospective observational study.

Publications

Recent trends in life expectancy across high income countries: retrospective observational study.

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