A Potential Decline in Life Expectancy in the United States in the 21st Century

Abstract

Forecasts of life expectancy are an important component of public policy that influence age-based entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare. Although the Social Security Administration recently raised its estimates of how long Americans are going to live in the 21st century, current trends in obesity in the United States suggest that these estimates may not be accurate. From our analysis of the effect of obesity on longevity, we conclude that the steady rise in life expectancy during the past two centuries may soon come to an end.

Keywords

Life expectancyEntitlement (fair division)LongevitySocial securityMedicineGerontologyDemographyExpectancy theoryObesityEnvironmental healthPolitical scienceEconomicsPsychologySociologyPopulationSocial psychology

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Publication Info

Year: 2005
Type: article
Volume: 352
Issue: 11
Pages: 1138-1145
Citations: 2498
Access: Closed

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APA Style

                            
                                
                                    Jennifer E. Layden, 
                                
                                    Jacob A. Brody, 
                                
                                    Leonard Hayflick
                                
                                et al.
                            
                            (2005). 
                            A Potential Decline in Life Expectancy in the United States in the 21st Century. 
                            New England Journal of Medicine
                            , 352
                            (11)
                            , 1138-1145.
                            https://doi.org/10.1056/nejmsr043743
                        

Identifiers

DOI: 10.1056/nejmsr043743