Research Group Leader

Marcus Ebeling

The Max Planck Research Group on Medical Demography investigates the impact of medical progress on population health and demographic dynamics. Our mission is to advance the field of medical demography by expanding upon existing approaches and developing new conceptual, methodological and empirical foundations. Our research focuses on key questions such as whether populations are becoming sicker despite medical progress, the impact of medical progress on population health, and its effect on population resilience and vulnerability.

MPIDR Publications

Selected Recent All

Ebeling, M.; Peters, F.:

National life expectancy lags behind benchmark progress and the role of smoking: an international comparison

European Journal of Population 42:1, 1–22. (2025)    

Zhang, Y.; Murata, S.; Schmidt-Mende, K.; Ebeling, M.; Modig, K.:

Disease accumulation and distribution across the lifespan in Swedish centenarians and non-centenarians: a nationwide life course comparison of longevity and health resilience

eClinicalMedicine 87:103396, 1–10. (2025)    

Zhang, Y.; Murata, S.; Schmidt-Mende, K.; Ebeling, M.; Modig, K.:

Do people reach 100 by surviving, delaying, or avoiding diseases? A life course comparison of centenarians and non-centenarians from the same birth cohorts

GeroScience 47:3, 3539–3549. (2025)    

Ebeling, M.; Meyer, A. C.; Modig, K.:

The rise in the number of long-term survivors from different diseases can slow the increase in life expectancy of the total population

BMC Public Health 20:1523, 1–8. (2020)    

Selected Recent All

Modig, K.; Ebeling, M.:

Beyond survival: redefining successful aging in the era of medical complexity

PLOS Biology 24:5, e3003784–e3003784. (2026)    

Murata, S.; Ebeling, M.; Ono, R.; Maeda, M.; Schmidt-Mende, K.; Fukuda, H.; Modig, K.:

Understanding Japan’s mortality advantage: a comparison of mortality in independent and dependent older adults in Japan and Sweden

BMC Medicine 24, 1–9. (2026)    

Piereth, A.-K.; Rau, R.; Ebeling, M.:

Population aging and changing hospitalization risks in Germany: a decomposition of changes in inpatient cases, 2005-2021

BMC Public Health 26:1437, 1–12. (2026)    

Ebeling, M.; Peters, F.:

National life expectancy lags behind benchmark progress and the role of smoking: an international comparison

European Journal of Population 42:1, 1–22. (2025)    

Murata, S.; Zhang, Y.; Ebeling, M.; Schmidt-Mende, K.; Modig, K.:

Health trajectories of independent and dependent centenarians: a Swedish nationwide cohort study

Innovation in Aging 9:6, 1–8. (2025)    

Selected Recent All

Modig, K.; Ebeling, M.:

Beyond survival: redefining successful aging in the era of medical complexity

PLOS Biology 24:5, e3003784–e3003784. (2026)    

Murata, S.; Ebeling, M.; Ono, R.; Maeda, M.; Schmidt-Mende, K.; Fukuda, H.; Modig, K.:

Understanding Japan’s mortality advantage: a comparison of mortality in independent and dependent older adults in Japan and Sweden

BMC Medicine 24, 1–9. (2026)    

Piereth, A.-K.; Rau, R.; Ebeling, M.:

Population aging and changing hospitalization risks in Germany: a decomposition of changes in inpatient cases, 2005-2021

BMC Public Health 26:1437, 1–12. (2026)    

Ebeling, M.; Peters, F.:

National life expectancy lags behind benchmark progress and the role of smoking: an international comparison

European Journal of Population 42:1, 1–22. (2025)    

Murata, S.; Zhang, Y.; Ebeling, M.; Schmidt-Mende, K.; Modig, K.:

Health trajectories of independent and dependent centenarians: a Swedish nationwide cohort study

Innovation in Aging 9:6, 1–8. (2025)    

Zhang, Y.; Murata, S.; Schmidt-Mende, K.; Ebeling, M.; Modig, K.:

Disease accumulation and distribution across the lifespan in Swedish centenarians and non-centenarians: a nationwide life course comparison of longevity and health resilience

eClinicalMedicine 87:103396, 1–10. (2025)    

Zhang, Y.; Murata, S.; Schmidt-Mende, K.; Ebeling, M.; Modig, K.:

Do people reach 100 by surviving, delaying, or avoiding diseases? A life course comparison of centenarians and non-centenarians from the same birth cohorts

GeroScience 47:3, 3539–3549. (2025)    

Ebeling, M.; Mühlichen, M.; Talbäck, M.; Rau, R.; Goedel, A.; Klüsener, S.:

Disease incidence and not case fatality drives the rural disadvantage in myocardial-infarction-related mortality in Germany

Preventive Medicine 179:107833, 1–8. (2024)    

Meyer, A. C.; Ebeling, M.; Acosta, E.; Modig, K.:

Continued decline in the incidence of myocardial infarction beyond the COVID-19 pandemic: a nationwide study of the Swedish population aged 60 and older during 2015–2022

European Journal of Epidemiology 39:6, 605–621. (2024)    

Meyer, A. C.; Ebeling, M.; Modig, K.:

Trajectories of long-term care after stroke in Sweden: nationwide study exploring patterns and determinants

Journal of the American Medical Directors Association 25:4, 599–605. (2024)    

Murata, S.; Ebeling, M.; Meyer, A. C.; Schmidt-Mende, K.; Hammar, N.; Modig, K.:

Blood biomarker profiles and exceptional longevity: comparison of centenarians and non-centenarians in a 35-year follow-up of the Swedish AMORIS cohort

GeroScience 46:2, 1693–1702. (2024)    

Ding, M.; Ebeling, M.; Ziegler, L.; Wennberg, A. M.; Modig, K.:

Time trends in atrial fibrillation-related stroke in an era of declining stroke: a Swedish nationwide register-based study

The Lancet Regional Health - Europe 28:100596, 1–9. (2023)    

Murata, S.; Meyer, A. C.; Ebeling, M.; Modig, K.:

Centenarians: who are they? A description of the total Swedish centenarian population in terms of living arrangements, health, and care utilization

Aging Clinical and Experimental Research 35:11, 2759–2767. (2023)    

Acosta, E.; Mehta, N. K.; Myrskylä, M.; Ebeling, M.:

Cardiovascular mortality gap between the United States and other high life expectancy countries in 2000–2016

Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences 77:Suppl. 2, S148–S157. (2022)    

Ebeling, M.; Acosta, E.; Caswell, H.; Meyer, A. C.; Modig, K.:

Years of life lost during the Covid-19 pandemic in Sweden considering variation in life expectancy by level of geriatric care

European Journal of Epidemiology 37:10, 1025–1034. (2022)    

Ebeling, M.; Ahlbom, A.; Gustavsson, P.; Modig, K.:

Occupational differences in mortality and life expectancy persist after retirement and throughout life

Scandinavian Journal of Public Health, 1–8. (2022)    

Ebeling, M.; Rau, R.; Sander, N.; Kibele, E. U. B.; Klüsener, S.:

Urban‑rural disparities in old‑age mortality vary systematically with age: evidence from Germany and England & Wales

Public Health 205, 102–109. (2022)    

Ebeling, M.; Rau, R.; Håkan, M.; Ahlbom, A.; Modig, K.:

The rate by which mortality increase with age is the same for those who experienced chronic disease as for the general population

Age and Ageing 50:5, 1633–1640. (2021)    

Modig, K.; Ahlbom, A.; Ebeling, M.:

Excess mortality from COVID-19: weekly excess death rates by age and sex for Sweden and its most affected region

European Journal of Public Health 31:1, 17–22. (2021)    

Modig, K.; Lambe, M.; Ahlbom, A.; Ebeling, M.:

Excess mortality for men and women above age 70 according to level of care during the first wave of COVID-19 pandemic in Sweden: a population-based study

The Lancet Regional Health - Europe 4:100072, 1–7. (2021)    

Wennberg, A. M.; Ding, M.; Ebeling, M.; Hammar, N.; Modig, K.:

Blood‑based biomarkers and long‑term risk of frailty: experience from the Swedish AMORIS cohort

Journals of Gerontology, Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences 76:9, 1643–1652. (2021)    

Ebeling, M.; Meyer, A. C.; Modig, K.:

The rise in the number of long-term survivors from different diseases can slow the increase in life expectancy of the total population

BMC Public Health 20:1523, 1–8. (2020)    

Modig, K.; Ebeling, M.:

Excess mortality from COVID-19: weekly access death rates by age and sex for Sweden

medRxiv preprints. unpublished. (2020)    

Ebeling, M.:

Measuring mortality trends and dynamics in an era of continuous mortality decline

Rostock: University of Rostock. (2018)

Ebeling, M.:

How has the lower boundary of human mortality evolved, and has it already stopped decreasing?

Demography 55:5, 1887–1903. (2018)    

Ebeling, M.; Modig, K.; Ahlbom, A.; Rau, R.:

The effects of increasing longevity and changing incidence on lifetime risk differentials: a decomposition approach

PLOS One 13:4, e0195307–e0195307. (2018)    

Ebeling, M.; Rau, R.; Baudisch, A.:

Rectangularization of the survival curve reconsidered: the maximum inner rectangle approach

Population Studies 72:3, 369–379. (2018)    

Sauer, T.; Ebeling, M.; Rau, R.:

The fateful cohorts

American Journal of Public Health 108:10, e1–e2. (2018)    

Bohk-Ewald, C.; Ebeling, M.; Rau, R.:

Lifespan disparity as an additional indicator for evaluating mortality forecasts

Demography 54:4, 1559–1577. (2017)    

Rau, R.; Ebeling, M.; Peters, F.; Bohk-Ewald, C.; Missov, T. I.:

Where is the level of the mortality plateau?

In: 2017 Living to 100 monograph, 1–21. Schaumburg, IL: Society of Actuaries. (2017)    

Bergeron Boucher, M.-P.; Ebeling, M.; Canudas Romo, V.:

Decomposing changes in life expectancy: compression versus shifting mortality

Demographic Research 33:14, 391–424. (2015)    

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