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

Samuel H. Preston, Andrew Stokes, Neil K. Mehta and Bochen Cao

No 18407, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We project 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 projections. 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 were 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. Projections of the effects of smoking are based on observed relations between cohort smoking patterns and cohort death rates from lung cancer. We find that both changes in smoking and in obesity are expected to have large effects on 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 0.92 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 0.26 years expected by 2040.

JEL-codes: I0 I1 I12 I18 J1 J11 J18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem and nep-hea
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Published as Demography201351:246 DOI: 10.1007/s13524-013-0246-9 Projecting the Effect of Changes in Smoking and Obesity on Future Life Expectancy in the United States Samuel H. Preston1 , Andrew Stokes1, Neil K. Mehta2 and Bochen Cao1

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