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30th October 2015
I read with interest Mark Paulson's article A smoke screen (The Actuary, October, bit.ly/1YTFKyo), but I drew a different conclusion from his fascinating analysis. Mark wrote that "The relatively low current levels of smoking mean it is not possible for the magnitude of past reductions to be repeated in future" and that "This suggests that changes in smoking patterns will have a diminishing impact on mortality improvements in future, particularly for males". That might turn out to be correct, particularly if most of the mortality benefit in giving up smoking is immediate (a 'period' effect) rather than occurring many years in the future. However, his analysis also pointed to a 40-year time lag between the peak of male smoking and falls in lung cancer incidence rates, which would suggest a 'cohort' effect where people might benefit many years in the future from giving up smoking earlier in life.
The lifespans of today's 45-year-olds, for example, will be far more determined by the mortality rates prevailing towards the end of their lives than the rates applying to them now in their 40s. The smoking prevalence chart in the article showed that the proportion of the adult population smoking has roughly halved in 40 years. That suggests that a large number of today's 85-year-olds were smokers when they were 45. By contrast, far fewer of today's 45-year-olds will have been smokers. As future 85-year-olds, they seem likely to benefit from having given up or never started smoking to a much greater extent than today's 85-year-olds.
The effect of this may be partially offset by changes in other risk factors, such as obesity and sedentary lifestyles. However, given the evidence for smoking's pre-eminence as a risk factor, there seems to me at least the strong possibility that the 85-year-olds of tomorrow will be, on the whole, much more healthy cohorts than those of today.
It would be foolish of me to suggest that people should necessarily prefer my argument over Mark's, but it would seem prudent for those exposed to longevity risk, including defined benefit pension scheme trustees and annuity insurers, to take the wide range of possibilities into account, which might result in them assuming that significant mortality improvements are still to come.
The lifespans of today's 45-year-olds, for example, will be far more determined by the mortality rates prevailing towards the end of their lives than the rates applying to them now in their 40s. The smoking prevalence chart in the article showed that the proportion of the adult population smoking has roughly halved in 40 years. That suggests that a large number of today's 85-year-olds were smokers when they were 45. By contrast, far fewer of today's 45-year-olds will have been smokers. As future 85-year-olds, they seem likely to benefit from having given up or never started smoking to a much greater extent than today's 85-year-olds.
The effect of this may be partially offset by changes in other risk factors, such as obesity and sedentary lifestyles. However, given the evidence for smoking's pre-eminence as a risk factor, there seems to me at least the strong possibility that the 85-year-olds of tomorrow will be, on the whole, much more healthy cohorts than those of today.
It would be foolish of me to suggest that people should necessarily prefer my argument over Mark's, but it would seem prudent for those exposed to longevity risk, including defined benefit pension scheme trustees and annuity insurers, to take the wide range of possibilities into account, which might result in them assuming that significant mortality improvements are still to come.
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