Near-Miss Events as a Measure of Repeated Survival

Adrien Remund , Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
Michel Oris, University Of Geneva
Delphine Fagot, University of Geneva
Juliette Fioretta, Université de Genève

The Strehler-Mildvan model of ageing and mortality postulates that survival is made possible by (decreasing) intrinsic vitality remaining high enough to sustain basic physical functions and surpassing occasional external challenges. Despite successfully predicting empirical observations such as the Gompertz mortality law, this model and its components (vitality and challenges) are deemed impossible to observe at the individual level. In this study, we attempt to capture some of it by leveraging a unique dataset (VLV) consisting of retrospective life calendars for 3000+ old people living in Switzerland. This dataset contains information about life-threatening health events over the whole life, which can be interpreted as 'near-miss' events. These can be in turn conceptualized as occurrences of external challenges that were narrowly avoided to survive until the next one. This allows us to estimate first how many times people of a given age 'cheated death' in order to survive to this age. Secondly, we estimate the effect of individual social, economic and psychological resources on the number of near-miss events using multivariate models. Thirdly, we plan to estimate the whole relationship between individual resources, intrinsic vitality, external challenges and survival using Structural Equation Modeling.

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 Presented in Session 74. Mortality Modelling