White adults are least likely to survive until the age of 100

Key takeaways:

• Black adults experienced a lower death rate vs. white adults following 85 years of age.
• Hispanic adults had the highest probability of surviving from ages 70, 80 and 90 to 100 years from 2006 to 2018.

The lower mortality rate experienced after age 85 years among Black adults in the United States persisted up to 100 years of age, a study published in the Journal of Internal Medicine showed.

Compared with white adults, significantly more non-Hispanic Black, Hispanic, and Asian adults reached centenarian status, according to the researchers’ analysis.

The findings add to the literature on the so called Black-white mortality crossover,” an occurrence where the death rate of Black adults is higher vs. white adults until after age 80 years, when it becomes lower.

The Black-white mortality crossover “has been controversial” — with some claiming it to be an “inaccurate ascribing of race and ethnicity” — while little research has been done on whether the decreased death rates extend to 100 years of age and over, according to Nadine Ouellette, from the University of Montreal in Canada, and Thomas Perls, MD, MPH, FACP, a professor from the Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine.

“Also unknown is whether non-Hispanic Asian life expectancy at very old ages remains persistently higher than other races and ethnicities or whether the gap closes at the most extreme ages,” they wrote.

In the analysis, the researchers used U.S. National Center for Health Statistics data from 2006 to 2021 to determine life expectancy at birth and at ages 75, 85 and 100 years for multiple diverse populations.

Oullette and Perls also used the data to estimate the probabilities of surviving from ages 70, 80 and 90 years to the age of 100 years.

Black individuals had the lowest life expectancy at birth from 2006 to 2019and the highest mortality rate from ages 15 to 80 years in 2019, followed by white, Hispanic and Asian individuals.

However, the death rate became lower than that of white adults at age 86 years for Black women and at 88 years for Black men.

The researchers pointed out that the death rate gap between Black and white adults continued to grow after those ages, persisting until age 100 years.

Meanwhile, Hispanic adults had the highest probability of survival from ages 70, 80 and 90 years to 100 years from 2006 to 2018, followed by Black adults and white adults.

Oullette and Perls reported similar probability of survival from age 90 to 100 years among diverse populations except for white adults, who had a lower probability.

Asian adults had the highest probability of surviving from all three ages to age 100 years in 2019, when data on the population first became available.

The researchers explained that the likeliest explanation behind the low mortality rate seen in Black adults in late ages “is a select survivor effect that yields non-Hispanic Black octogenarians who are resilient at younger ages to socioeconomic disadvantages and other factors associated with increased mortality risk.”

The results “support the importance of including diverse population samples for the study of aging and longevity,” Oullette and Perls wrote. “Furthermore, such understanding will be important for precision screening and prediction and precision therapies for enhancing health spans for everyone.”

References:

Ouellette N, Perls T. J Intern Med. 2024;doi:10.1111/joim.20031.
Study explores race and ethnicity dynamics in survival in the United States after people reach their mid-80s and beyond. Available at: https://www.bumc.bu.edu/camed/2024/12/04/study-explores-race-ethnicity-dynamics-in-survival-in-the-us-after-people-reach-mid-80s-and-beyond/. Published Dec. 4, 2024. Accessed Dec. 9, 2024.