Projecting the Effect of Changes in Smoking and Obesity on Future Life Expectancy in the United States

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Samuel H. Preston, University of Pennsylvania; Andrew Stokes, University of Pennsylvania; Neil Mehta, Emory University; Bochen Cao, University of Pennsylvania
• Language: English
• Date: 2013-11-23
• Publisher: SpringerOpen
• Publication Version: Final Published Version
• Copyright Statement: © 2013 The Author(s).
• License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported
• Final Published Version (URL): http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13524-013-0246-9
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: Demography
• ISSN: 0070-3370
• Volume: 51
• Issue: 1
• Start Page: 27
• End Page: 49
• Grant/Funding Information: This research was supported by National Institute of Aging Grant R01AG040212, and by the U.S. Social Security Administration through Grant #5RRC08098400-04-00 to the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) as part of the SSA Retirement Research Consortium.
• Keywords: Projections; ATTRIBUTABLE MORTALITY; DEATH; Social Sciences; OVERWEIGHT; Mortality; Obesity; CAUSE-SPECIFIC MORTALITY; Demography; PREVALENCE; DEMOGRAPHY; Smoking; Longevity; COUNTRIES
• Research Categories: Health Sciences, Public Health

Abstract

We estimate the effects of declining smoking and increasing obesity on mortality in the United States over the period 2010-2040. Data on cohort behavioral histories are integrated into these estimates. Future distributions of body mass indices are projected using transition matrices applied to the initial distribution in 2010. In addition to projections of current obesity, we project distributions of obesity when cohorts are age 25. To these distributions, we apply death rates by current and age-25 obesity status observed in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 1988-2006. Estimates of the effects of smoking changes are based on observed relations between cohort smoking patterns and cohort death rates from lung cancer. We find that changes in both smoking and obesity are expected to have large effects on U.S. mortality. For males, the reductions in smoking have larger effects than the rise in obesity throughout the projection period. By 2040, male life expectancy at age 40 is expected to have gained 0.83 years from the combined effects. Among women, however, the two sets of effects largely offset one another throughout the projection period, with a small gain of 0.09 years expected by 2040.