title: The role of smoking in changes in the survival curve: an empirical study in 10 European countries.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  We examined the role of smoking in the two dimensions behind the time trends in adult mortality in European countries, that is, rectangularization of the survival curve (mortality compression) and longevity extension (increase in the age-at-death).
  
  
  METHODS
  Using data on national sex-specific populations aged 50 years and older from Denmark, Finland, France, West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, we studied trends in life expectancy, rectangularity, and longevity from 1950 to 2009 for both all-cause and nonsmoking-related mortality and correlated them with trends in lifetime smoking prevalence.
  
  
  RESULTS
  For all-cause mortality, rectangularization accelerated around 1980 among men in all the countries studied, and more recently among women in Denmark and the United Kingdom. Trends in lifetime smoking prevalence correlated negatively with both rectangularization and longevity extension, but more negatively with rectangularization. For nonsmoking-related mortality, rectangularization among men did not accelerate around 1980. Among women, the differences between all-cause mortality and nonsmoking-related mortality were small, but larger for rectangularization than for longevity extension. Rectangularization contributed less to the increase in life expectancy than longevity extension, especially for nonsmoking-related mortality among men.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Smoking affects rectangularization more than longevity extension, both among men and women.
authors.affiliation: Population Research Centre, Demography Department, Faculty of Spatial Sciences, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands; Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute, The Hague, The Netherlands. Electronic address: f.janssen@rug.nl.
authors.forename: Fanny
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Janssen
authors.affiliation: Institute for Social and Preventive Medicine, University Hospital Center, Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Valentin
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Rousson
authors.affiliation: Institute for Social and Preventive Medicine, University Hospital Center, Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Fred
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Paccaud
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D005060:Europe / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008017:Life Expectancy; D008136:Longevity; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009026:Mortality; D015995:Prevalence; D012737:Sex Factors; D012907:Smoking / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000401:mortality
keywords: Compression; Life expectancy; Mortality; Sex differences; Smoking-related mortality