Do heads of government age more quickly? Observational study comparing mortality between elected leaders and runners-up in national elections of 17 countries

Objectives: To determine whether being elected to head of government is associated with accelerated mortality by studying survival differences between people elected to office and unelected runner-up candidates who never served.

Design: Observational study.

Setting: Historical survival data on elected and runner-up candidates in parliamentary or presidential elections in Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, and United States, from 1722 to 2015.

Participants: Elected and runner-up political candidates.

Main outcome measure: Observed number of years alive after each candidate's last election, relative to what would be expected for an average person of the same age and sex as the candidate during the year of the election, based on historical French and British life tables. Observed post-election life years were compared between elected candidates and runners-up, adjusting for life expectancy at time of election. A Cox proportional hazards model (adjusted for candidate's life expectancy at the time of election) considered years until death (or years until end of study period for those not yet deceased by 9 September 2015) for elected candidates versus runners-up.

Results: The sample included 540 candidates: 279 winners and 261 runners-up who never served. A total of 380 candidates were deceased by 9 September 2015. Candidates who served as a head of government lived 4.4 (95% confidence interval 2.1 to 6.6) fewer years after their last election than did candidates who never served (17.8 v 13.4 years after last election; adjusted difference 2.7 (0.6 to 4.8) years). In Cox proportional hazards analysis, which considered all candidates (alive or deceased), the mortality hazard for elected candidates relative to runners-up was 1.23 (1.00 to 1.52).

Conclusions: Election to head of government is associated with a substantial increase in mortality risk compared with candidates in national elections who never served.