Human mortality at extreme age
Journal article, 2021

We use a combination of extreme value statistics, survival analysis and computer-intensive methods to analyse the mortality of Italian and French semi-supercentenarians. After accounting for the effects of the sampling frame, extreme-value modelling leads to the conclusion that constant force of mortality beyond 108 years describes the data well and there is no evidence of differences between countries and cohorts. These findings are consistent with use of a Gompertz model and with previous analysis of the International Database on Longevity and suggest that any physical upper bound for the human lifespan is so large that it is unlikely to be approached. Power calculations make it implausible that there is an upper bound below 130 years. There is no evidence of differences in survival between women and men after age 108 in the Italian data and the International Database on Longevity, but survival is lower for men in the French data.

semi-supercentenarian

extreme value theory

exponential hazard

Author

Leo R. Belzile

HEC Montréal

Anthony C. Davison

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL)

Holger Rootzen

University of Gothenburg

Chalmers, Mathematical Sciences, Applied Mathematics and Statistics

Dmitrii Zholud

University of Gothenburg

Chalmers, Mathematical Sciences, Applied Mathematics and Statistics

Royal Society Open Science

2054-5703 (eISSN)

Vol. 8 9 202097

Subject Categories

Bioinformatics (Computational Biology)

Environmental Health and Occupational Health

Public Health, Global Health, Social Medicine and Epidemiology

DOI

10.1098/rsos.202097

More information

Latest update

10/14/2021