Stalling life expectancy and increased mortality in working ages deserve urgent attention

Darlington‐Pollock, Frances; Norman, Paul

doi:10.1016/s2468-2667(19)30207-5

Cited by 5 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Additionally, overall mortality rates in England and Wales in people aged 25-50 years were appreciably higher than peer countries since the 2010s, consistent with our findings. While some have implied that austerity measures after the 2008 financial crisis contributed to mortality deterioration, the empirical grounding for such claims is not strong (Darlington-Pollock & Norman, 2019). Our results suggest that while the UK performs relatively well on external causes such as suicide, homicide, and transport accidents, this is countered by stalling improvements in cardiovascular disease and cancer, and drug deaths are also increasing.…”

Section: (Which Was Not Certified By Peer Review)contrasting

confidence: 55%

US Exceptionalism? International Trends in Midlife Mortality

Dowd

Doniec

Zhang

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Background Rising midlife mortality in the United States (US) has raised concerns, particularly the increase in "deaths of despair" (due to drugs, alcohol, and suicide). While life expectancy is also stalling in other countries such as the UK, whether midlife mortality is rising outside the US is not known. Methods We document trends in midlife mortality in the US, UK and a group of 16 high-income countries in Western Europe, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Japan, as well as 7 Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries from 1990-2019. We use annual mortality data from the World Health Organization Mortality Database to analyze sex and age-specific (25-44, 45-54, and 55-64) age-standardized death rates across 13 major cause-of-death categories. Findings US midlife mortality rates worsened since 1990 for several causes of death including drug-related, alcohol-related, suicide, metabolic disease, nervous system disease, respiratory disease, and infectious/parasitic diseases. Deaths due to homicide, transport accidents, and cardiovascular disease declined overall since 1990 but saw recent increases or stalling of improvements. Midlife mortality has also recently increased in the UK for 45-54-year-olds, and in Canada, Poland, and Sweden among 25-44-year-olds. Conclusion The US is increasingly falling behind not only high-income but also CEE countries heavily impacted by the post-Soviet mortality crisis of the 1990s. While levels of midlife mortality in the UK are substantially lower than in the US overall, there are signs that UK midlife mortality is worsening relative to the rest of Europe.

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Section: (Which Was Not Certified By Peer Review)contrasting

confidence: 55%

US Exceptionalism? International Trends in Midlife Mortality

Dowd

Doniec

Zhang

et al. 2023

Preprint

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“…4,6 A phenomenon first described in the USA of rising mid-age mortality (aged 45-54 years) from 'deaths of despair' -that is deaths from suicide, drug and alcohol overdoses, and alcoholic liver disease -has now been observed in England and Wales 7 and in Scotland, 8,9 with growing evidence that an increase in mortality at mid-age is contributing to a widening of inequalities in the age of death in the UK. 3,10 This alarming loss of life did not occur suddenly. In 2015, when the UK saw one of the largest increases in year-on-year deaths since World War II, alarm bells were sounded but the government response was not one of national crisis.…”

Section: Health In Britain Before 2020mentioning

confidence: 95%

Same storm, different boats: can the UK recapture improving life expectancy trends?

Hiam

Patel

2021

J R Soc Med

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The COVID-19 pandemic has led to devastating loss of life and livelihood across the world. It has resulted in falls in life expectancy, a widely used summary measure of contemporary age-specific mortality rates, in most European countries. 1 In England and Wales, life expectancy has fallen by 0.9 and 1.2 years for women and men, respectively, when compared to 2019. 2 These falls are, however, part of a longer-term trend that began long before the COVID-19 pandemic. For the past decade, life expectancy in the UK has been stalling, and falling in some regions and social groups, and inequality in age at death has been rising. 3 In this piece, we consider the health of the UK population before the pandemic, compare this to the health of the populations in the USA and Japan, as investigated in a recent paper, 3 and ask if it is possible to recapture previous improving life expectancy trajectories.

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