Lifespan Extension with Varying Cause-of-death Trajectories

The goal of the panel proposed here is to improve the understanding of varying cause-of-death trajectories leading to similar levels of life expectancy by bringing together innovative researchers from evolutionary biodemography, observational epidemiology, stressing the interaction between biology, physical environment, human behaviour and socio-economic infrastructure.

The longest time-series of varying cause-of-death profiles with the most detailed information are available from developed countries, where lifespan extension was embedded in a considerable increase in prosperity. Over the last decades, in developing/transitional countries lifespan extension was going on much faster than in the developed countries, approaching their low mortality at still a fraction of their prosperity. The countries with largest national populations, China and India, but also others, are providing instructive examples for this phenomenon of an accelerated epidemiological transition. Therefore, the panel is equally interested to look into the trajectory of COD in rich and developed countries as well as in developing/transitional countries, where COD information is limited and mostly relies on primary epidemiological data from small samples.

Changing morbidity spectrum and changing cause-of-death profile over the life course and in changing environments shall be analyzed as direct or side effects of evolutionary adaptation. Usefulness of this approach for basic research and for clinical health care research will be assessed.