Hello zulu500,
The Australian Bureau of Statistics has published an article
“Measuring Australia's Progress
2002 - The headline indicators – Health” which is available on their
website at http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/94713ad445ff1425ca25682000192af2/b197511b34ff1e8fca256bdc001223fa!OpenDocument
Here are some of the salient points:
“Life expectancy at birth for men and women continued to increase
throughout the 1990s, and Australians are now among the longest-lived
people in the world. But substantial differences remain among certain
parts of the population; Indigenous Australians in particular have
much lower life expectancy than other Australians.”
The article goes on to say that overall, the estimate is that someone
born in 1999 can expect to live almost 77 years if male, and almost 82
if female, which is 3 and 2 years longer, respectively, than if they
had been born in 1990. Over the whole 20th century, life expectancy
increased by 20 years. Much of this was due to a decrease in deaths
from infectious diseases, and also better public health, hygiene, and
overall living standards. “These changes were particularly beneficial
to infants, women who were pregnant or in childbirth, and older
people; official statistics show that rapid declines in deaths among
infants were the main reason that life expectancy increased in the
first half of the century. Increases in life expectancy slowed in the
middle of the twentieth century, and then plateaued in the 1960s,
largely because of increases in cardiovascular disease. Substantial
improvements in the life expectancy of older people have been a
feature of the second half of the twentieth century, particularly
since the 1970s. Between 1980 and 1999, life expectancy at age 65
increased by just over 3 years for men and 2.5 years for women. Life
expectancy at birth over the same period increased by over 5.5 years
for men and just under 4 years for women.”
I’m guessing that your statement about people who are alive in 2010
living to be 120 might have come from some article looking at possible
developments in the future due to medical progress. However, the
statistics cited here show an increase of only 20 years in the life
expectancy of Australians over the last century. Going by this, it
seems rather too optimistic even to predict a life expectancy of 120
years for someone born in 2010, let alone for people of all ages alive
at that time. It would mean that in less than 10 years, life
expectancy would have to increase by approximately 40 years, ie twice
the improvement achieved over the last 100 years. The article makes
the following comment: “There is a good deal of debate about whether
life expectancy will continue to increase, and there are two opposing
schools of thought. Some analysts believe that there is a biological
limit to an average life of around 85 years which has nearly been
reached; others believe that life expectancy will continue to increase
as a result of further medical advances and better lifestyles. There
is no doubt that there is more room for improvement among some groups
of the population than among others.”
There are differences in the life expectancy of different groups of
people. “Indigenous Australians do not live as long: recent data
estimate their life expectancy at birth to be about 20 years less than
for other Australians. At the end of the 1990s Indigenous life
expectancy at birth (56 years for men and 63 years for women) stood at
levels similar to those of the general population close to the
beginning of the twentieth century. A substantial body of evidence
shows that lower socioeconomic status and less education contributes
to poorer health. Likewise, poor health, particularly in childhood,
can impair education and thus affect socioeconomic success in later
life.” There is also concern that while the life expectancy of older
people has increased, there has not been an equal improvement in the
length of time people live without a disability or chronic illness.
An article from the North American Actuarial Journal featured on the
Society of Actuaries web site contains a discussion about future
trends in life expectancy, which took place at a SOA conference. Here
are the main points made in the article:
The article cites the presentation of Leonard Hayflick, who proposed a
biological theory for why the true human lifespan is 120 years. This
is based on the number of times normal human cells can divide before
becoming senescent. Hayflick’s argument is cited that “recent research
on fruit flies has found that the likelihood of dying decreases at the
oldest ages. If applicable to humans, this finding may reflect
surviving a specific period of time during which humans are most
vulnerable to fatal diseases, which Hayflick placed around age 65 to
75. Those who survive this ‘‘bottleneck’’ are likely to experience a
reduction in the rate of increase in mortality from one age to the
next.” Hayflick believes that even if we find solutions for all the
leading causes of death, this will only add a maximum of 20 years to
current life expectancy, ie up to a maximum of 120 years.
Jay Olshansky looked at what would have to happen to death rates in
order to increase life expectancy to 100 years. “Olshansky reported
that for life expectancy at birth to increase from 75 years (where it
is today) to 85 years, death rates would have to decline by about 50%
for women at every age and roughly 70% to 75% for men at every age. In
Japan, where life expectancy at birth is considerably higher (81.4
years), mortality rates would have to decline by
25% to raise it to 85 years… assuming a 2% reduction in death rates
every year, Olshansky estimated what it would take to move life
expectancy to 100 years. Assuming that this 2% decline in mortality
rates was caused by reducing the leading cause of death,
cardiovascular disease, then we would have to eliminate all
cardiovascular disease as a cause of death by 2010. However, this
alone would not yield a life expectancy of 100. To get to that point,
he argues that we would have to eliminate virtually all causes of
death, including genetic diseases, and then make significant progress
in reducing deaths from accidents, homicide, and suicide, particularly
in younger ages, to get to a life expectancy of 100 at birth.” He
pointed out, however, that as soon as we manage to eradicate one fatal
disease, we discover other previously unknown ones, such as genetic
diseases. Also, we begin to be faced once more with the dangers of
infectious diseases previously conquered, because of the appearance of
antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
Olshansky made a further very important point about the danger of
using data from the past to project trends for the future, by making a
analogy with maximum running speeds achieved by humans: “the data show
a persistent and dramatic decline in the time needed to run 1 mile
from roughly 5 minutes when these times were first recorded to 3
minutes and 43 seconds, the current world record. According to
Olshansky, a straight-line extrapolation of the speed with which
humans are capable of running 1 mile yields a time of 1 minute in the
year 2420; by 2580 the trip will be instantaneous! As Olshansky
pointed out, like individual aging, the speed with which humans can
run is inherently a biological phenomenon. Moreover, even if some of
us can run 1 mile in less than 4 minutes, there is little reason to
expect that all of us can. Therefore, by similar reasoning, Olshansky
suggested, just because Madam Jeanne Calment lived to the age of 123
does not mean that life expectancy will reach 123 years.”
One forecasting approach that is based on historic data is the
Lee-Carter method. This has been shown to be reliable, and it takes
incorporate a randomness factor, to take into account unexpected
events. Using this method, the estimated life expectancy for 2065 is
86.1 years.
From :”Life Expectancy in the Future – A Summary of a Discussion Among
Experts” by Robert B Friedland
Full text at: http://www.soa.org/library/naaj/1997-09/naaj9810_1.pdf
(Society of Actuaries, US)
With respect to occupation, I’ve had to go further afield than just
Australia and the US to find some information. However, I’ve limited
what I present to studies from relatively comparable Western
societies.
Occupational differences in life expectancy are, in great part,
related to differences in socio-economic status that arise from
occupation. Thus, UK statistics show that for both men and women life
expectancy is lowest for unskilled workers, and then increases in the
order: partly skilled, skilled manual, skilled non-manual, managerial
and technical, professional. “There were clear inequalities in life
expectancy by Social Class over the period 1972 to 1996. For men in
1992-96 there was more than a 9 year difference in life expectancy
between those in professional occupations and those in unskilled
occupations; for women the differential was over 6 years. The
difference for men has increased reasonably consistently since the
early 1970s, whereas for women initial narrowing of the gap has been
followed by widening in recent years.” From “Sustainable Development -
the UK Government’s approach”
http://www.sustainable-development.gov.uk/sustainable/quality99/chap4/04f03.htm
Life expectancy of athletes: There seems to have been only one
detailed study on this topic, which was published by a group from
Finland in 1993:
The study found the following life expectancies, when world class
athletes were compared with each other and a reference group of
non-athletes “The mean LE adjusted for occupational group, marital
status, and the age at entry to the cohort (and its 95% confidence
limits) was in endurance sports (long distance running and
cross-country skiing) 75.6 (73.6, 77.5) yr; in team games (soccer, ice
hockey, basketball, as well as jumpers and short-distance runners from
track and field (73.9 (72.7, 75.1) yr; in power sports (boxing,
wrestling, weight lifting, and throwers from field athletics) 71.5
(70.4, 72.2) yr; and in the reference group 69.9 (69.0, 70.9) yr.” The
increase in life expectancy found in athletes was mainly due to
decreased cardiovascular mortality and participation in team sports.
Med Sci Sports Exerc 1993, Volume 25, pages 237-244
Increased life expectancy of world class male athletes.
Sarna S, Sahi T, Koskenvuo M, Kaprio J.
Abstract at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=8450727&dopt=Abstract
Life expectancy of doctors:
“No recent national studies have been published on age at death and
causes of death for U.S. physicians, and previous studies have had
sampling limitations… Data in this report are from the National
Occupational Mortality Surveillance database and are derived from
deaths occurring in 28 states between 1984 and 1995. Occupation is
coded according to the U.S. Bureau of the Census classification
system… Among both U.S. white and black men, physicians were, on
average, older when they died, (73.0 years for white and 68.7 for
black) than were lawyers (72.3 and 62.0), all examined professionals
(70.9 and 65.3), and all men (70.3 and 63.6). The top ten causes of
death for white male physicians were essentially the same as those of
the general population, although they were more likely to die from
cerebrovascular disease, accidents, and suicide, and less likely to
die from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, pneumonia/influenza,
or liver disease than were other professional white men.”
Am J Prev Med 2000, Volume 19, pages 155-159
Mortality rates and causes among U.S. physicians.
Frank E, Biola H, Burnett CA.
Abstract at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11020591&dopt=Abstract
Other occupations:
Attorneys:
“Using obituaries from the Annual Report of the Virginia State Bar, we
compared the lifespans of male trial attorneys with those of male
non-trial attorneys. We also compared these findings with the
lifespans of males in the general population. RESULTS: For white male
attorneys in Virginia, the mean +/- SD age at death was 66.2 +/- 12.6
years for 250 trial attorneys and 65.0 +/- 12.5 years for 598
non-trial attorneys. This was not statistically significant. The
lifespans of both trial and non-trial attorneys exceeded those of the
general population.”
South Med J, 2003, Volume 96, pages 264-265
Lifespan of male attorneys: preliminary findings.
Vieweg WV, Dougherty LM, Barfield K.
Abstract at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12659358&dopt=Abstract
Pilots:
“A group of 3707 male pilots was followed over 70,832 person-years.
There were 342 deaths vs. 362.8 expected, with a standardized
mortality ratio (SMR) of 0.94… Aircraft accidents… had a major
influence on total mortality and the SMR for all other causes was 0.68
(95% CI 0.59-0.77). The SMR for cancer was 0.89 (95% CI 0.71-1.11) and
for circulatory diseases 0.53 (95% CI 0.42-0.67). The highest SMR for
total mortality in pilots < 30 yr old was 3.52 (95% CI 2.54-4.76). For
this age group 38 of a total of 42 deaths were caused by aircraft
accidents. It was indicated that almost half the deaths of aircraft
accidents took place in private aircraft. CONCLUSIONS: Due to aircraft
accidents young pilots have a higher mortality rate than the general
population; other harmful effects on the mortality of pilots in their
workplace were not found. At all ages pilots have a better life
expectancy than the general population.”
Aviat Space Environ Med, 2002, Volume 73, pages 587-592
Aircraft accidents and other causes of death among Norwegian
commercial pilots.
Haldorsen T, Reitan JB, Tveten U.
Abstract at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12056676&dopt=Abstract
A Standardized Mortality Ratio study (SMR) using England and Wales as
the comparison population was carried out for 6209 male pilots and
1153 male flight engineers employed for at least 1 yr between January
1, 1950 and December 31, 1992... The all-causes SMR for pilots of 61
(592 deaths) and 56 for flight engineers (127 deaths) confirmed the
expected Healthy Worker Effect. In pilots apart from the known excess
of deaths from aircraft accidents (SMR 14694), most of the comparisons
showed significant deficits in mortality. The SMR's for brain/CNS
cancer (143) and colon cancer (111) were no longer statistically
significant. The SMR of 333 for melanoma was significantly raised in
pilots but was not evident in flight engineers. Life expectancy for
longhaul pilots and flight engineers was 4-5 yr better than England
and Wales for ages 55-65 while the advantage for shorthaul pilots was
reduced to between 2-3 yr…. The study confirms that flightdeck crew
live longer than the England and Wales population and do not exhibit
patterns of death that could be directly attributable to occupation.
Aviat Space Environ Med, 1999, Volume 70, pages 548-555
British Airways flightdeck mortality study, 1950-1992.
Irvine D, Davies DM.
Abstract at
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=10373044&dopt=Abstract
Various:
Bernard Cohen, Professor Emeritus of Physics, University of
Pittsburgh, has written an article on how various factors, including
occupation, result in a loss in life expectancy (LLE):
“One of the greatest risks to an individual is living in poverty, LLE
= 9 years for 19 large U.S. cities and for Montreal. In Britain, the
difference in life expectancy between professional people and
unskilled laborers is 7.2 years, and in Finland it is also 7.2 years.
When Canadian men are ranked by income, those in the 90th percentile
live 6 years longer than those in the 10th percentile. The latter have
a higher mortality rate by 32% for heart disease and stroke, by 34%
for cancer, and by 88% for accidents, poison, and violence… Life
expectancy varies substantially with occupation. Post office
employees, university professors, and workers in clothing
manufacturing and in communications industries live 1-2 years longer
than average, and miners, policemen, firemen, truck drivers, and
fishermen die 2-3 years younger than average. But the most dangerous
job is no job at all — unemployment. A 1% increase in national
unemployment results in 37,000 deaths per year”
How To Rank Risks, February 27, 2002, By Bernard L. Cohen
On the American Council on Science and Health’s web site
“HealthFactsandFears.com
http://healthfactsandfears.com/featured_articles/feb2002/risks022702.html
Here are some interesting figures from Denmark on how occupation
affects the length of time people can expect to stay healthy after the
age of 30, expressed also as a percentage of remaining life
expectancy:
“Among 30-year-old men, high-level salaried employees had the longest
expected lifetime in perceived good health, 41 years, which amounts to
89% of life expectancy, compared to 34 years (73%) for farmers, 32
years (73%) for unskilled workers, and 19 years (56%) for economically
inactive men. Expected lifetime in perceived good health for
high-level salaried female employees from age 30 was 46 years (91% of
life expectancy). The lowest was found for assisting spouses, 36 years
(71%) and economically inactive women, 25 years (56%).”
Scand J Public Health, 2000, Volume 28:, pages 194-199
Socioeconomic differences in health expectancy in Denmark.
Bronnum-Hansen H.
Abstract at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11045751&dopt=Abstract
I hope this has given you the information you require, but please
request further clarification if required.
Search strategy on Google and Medline: 1. “life expectancy”
occupation, 2. “life expectancy” doctors, 3. “life expectancy”
athletes 4. “life expectancy” Australia |
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