May 06, 2015 | News
Mortality in the USA
MPIDR researchers Alyson van Raalte and Vladimir M. Shkolnikov have been awarded a poster prize at this year's Meeting of the Population Association of America (PAA). The two researchers compared mortality data of industrialized countries in order to understand mortality differences among these countries.
The starting point for their research was the question of why life expectancy in the USA is lower than in other highly developed countries. It is known from previous studies that the USA has comparatively high early adult mortality and low old age mortality. It is also known that the USA experienced comparatively strong heart disease mortality reduction, but weak declines from other causes of death, such as strokes, cancers and mental disorders over the past half-century.
For their study, the researchers quantified the effects of past differences in the age-
specific mortality levels (1960) and differences in age-specific mortality trends (1960-2009) to recent life expectancy differences (2009) between 18 highly developed countries. This is the first time that mortality levels and trends have been compared on the same scale.
They found out that most of the current gaps in life expectancy between the USA and other countries lie in past age-specific mortality differences. American men experienced above average mortality reductions over the ages 50-70, but worse trends at older ages. American women had comparatively weak mortality reductions at all ages.
"The contemporary social problems in the USA are often claimed as being the reason for the lower life expectancy in the USA compared to other industrialized countries. We couldn't confirm this with our study. We should instead look into the past if we want to find the reasons for the American shortfalls in life expectancy," says MPIDR researcher Alyson van Raalte.
Low American life expectancy: Separating longstanding differences from mortality trends, 1960-2009 (PDF File, 254 kB)
Alyson A. van Raalte, Vladimir M. Shkolnikov