The Lancet Public Health, March 2025

Changing life expectancy in European countries 1990–2021: a subanalysis of causes and risk factors from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021

Decades of steady improvements in life expectancy in Europe slowed down from around 2011, well before the COVID-19 pandemic, for reasons which remain disputed.

We aimed to assess how changes in risk factors and cause-specific death rates in different European countries related to changes in life expectancy in those countries before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.