Progress Stalled? The Uncertain Future of Mortality in High-Income Countries
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4122297 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jennifer B Dowd (0000-0003-2006-5656, corresponding author), Antonino Polizzi (0000-0001-9169-8608), Andrea M Tilstra (0000-0001-7622-9088) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 51 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 257-293 |
| Publication date | 2025-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Population and Development Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0098-7921 • E-ISSN: 1728-4457 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/padr.12687 |
| OpenAlex | W4404086071 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 7 |
| References cited | 156 |
Steady and significant improvements in life expectancy have been a bright spot for human progress for the last century or more. Recently, this success has shown signs of faltering in some high-income countries, where mortality improvements have slowed or even reversed since the early 2010s. Combined with the large mortality shock of the COVID-19 pandemic, guaranteed forward progress feels less certain. We review mortality trends in high-income countries since 2000 through the COVID-19 pandemic. While deteriorating mortality in the United States has received the most attention, countries including the United Kingdom, Canada, the Netherlands, Greece, and Germany are also seeing slowdowns. Before COVID-19, these slowdowns largely reflected stalling improvements in cardiovascular disease mortality and increases in deaths from external causes in young and midlife for the worst-performing countries. We discuss prospects for the future of mortality in high-income countries, including lingering impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, challenges and opportunities related to the obesity epidemic, and emerging reasons for both optimism and pessimism. While biological limits to increased life expectancy may eventually dominate long-term trends, human-made social factors are currently holding many countries back from already achievable best-practice life expectancy and will be key to near-term improvements
Developing country · Development economics · Economic growth · Economics · High income countries · Global Health Care Issues · Health disparities and outcomes · Insurance, Mortality, Demography, Risk Management
Estimating Covid-19 excess mortality during and after the pandemic
Mortality Dynamics in Low-Mortality Countries
Why is life expectancy in England & Wales falling behind? A cause-of-death decomposition approach
Faibles progrès de l’espérance de vie et contrastes marqués entre types de départements
The generational health drift
Structured Inequality, Uncertain Lifespans
National Life Expectancy Lags Behind Benchmark Progress and the Role of Smoking
Health at a Glance 2023
Reductions in 2020 US life expectancy due to Covid-19 and the disproportionate impact on the Black and Latino populations
Trends in health inequalities in 27 European countries
Socioeconomic Status and Obesity
Broken Limits to Life Expectancy
Lifespan and Healthspan
Mass privatisation and the post-communist mortality crisis
Recent trends in life expectancy across high income countries
Life Expectancy and Mortality Rates in the United States, 1959-2017
Health and economic burden of the projected obesity trends in the USA and the UK
Demographic science aids in understanding the spread and fatality rates of Covid-19
A Potential Decline in Life Expectancy in the United States in the 21st Century
Tracking excess mortality across countries during the Covid-19 pandemic with the World Mortality Dataset
Intensity and frequency of extreme novel epidemics
Death of family members as an overlooked source of racial disadvantage in the United States
Climate Change, Mortality, and Adaptation
Rising morbidity and mortality in midlife among white non-Hispanic Americans in the 21st century
The nature and origins of political polarization over science
Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism
Aging and health in France
Changing impact of Covid-19 on life expectancy 2019–2023 and its decomposition
Is the relationship between men's age at first birth and midlife health changing? Evidence from two British cohorts
Inequality in hospitalization due to non-communicable diseases in Sweden
Smoking epidemic in Europe in the 21st century
Slowdown in Mortality Improvement in the Past Decade
Causes of America’s Lagging Life Expectancy
Older Adults in the United States Have Worse Cardiometabolic Health Compared to England
An Introduction to the Supplemental Issue on Why Does Health in the US Continue to Lag Behind
Cohort Trends in the Burden of Multiple Chronic Conditions Among Aging U.S. Adults
Cardiovascular Mortality Gap Between the United States and Other High Life Expectancy Countries in 2000–2016
Work–family lifecourses and later-life health in the United Kingdom
Estimating the burden of the Covid-19 pandemic on mortality, life expectancy and lifespan inequality in England and Wales
The Impact of Obesity on US Mortality Levels
The Depths of Despair Among US Adults Entering Midlife
The Promotion and Marketing of OxyContin
Does Despair Really Kill? A Roadmap for an Evidence-Based Answer
Falling Behind
Including the Smoking Epidemic in Internationally Coherent Mortality Projections
Sex mortality differences in The United States
Mortality attributable to obesity among middle-aged adults in the United States
A Unified Model of Cohort Mortality
Lifespan Dispersion in Times of Life Expectancy Fluctuation
Social Disparities in Destandardization—Changing Family Life Course Patterns in Seven European Countries
The Determinants of Mortality
Trends in senescent life expectancy
Defining despair
How Long Will We Live
Trends in Causes of Death in Low-Mortality Countries
Life expectancy changes since Covid-19
Do birth cohorts matter? Age-period-cohort analyses of the obesity epidemic in the United States
Sources and severity of bias in estimates of the BMI-mortality association
What have we learned about mortality patterns over the past 25 years
Living longer but not necessarily healthier
The Contemporary American Drug Overdose Epidemic in International Perspective
Life Expectancy Reversals in Low-Mortality Populations
Why Did the Best Prepared Country in the World Fare So Poorly during Covid
Interpreting changes in life expectancy during temporary mortality shocks
Overview Chapter 4
Convergences and divergences in mortality
Institutional Failures as Structural Determinants of Suicide
Fundamental Cause Theory, Technological Innovation, and Health Disparities
Social Inequality and the Future of US Life Expectancy
Deaths of Despair in Comparative Perspective
| Unique citing works | 7 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 7 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |