Health The Swiss have never lived as long as they did in 2023

Life expectancy in Switzerland reached a record level in 2023. Researchers from Lausanne estimate that it will be 85.5 years for women and 82.2 years for men.

The historic upward trend, which was interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, thus appears to have resumed, as the Lausanne University Center for General Medicine and Public Health (Unisanté) announced on Tuesday.

In the previous record year of 2019, life expectancy was 85.6 years for women and 81.9 years for men. In 2020, it had fallen to 85.1 and 81 years with the onset of Covid, before remaining below the record level in 2021 and 2022.

No flu epidemic

According to Unisanté, the first half of 2023 had a particularly favorable impact on mortality. There was no significant flu epidemic during this period. Although there was a wave of deaths towards the end of the year, this did not reverse the trend.

The Unisanté researchers calculated life expectancy on the basis of data from the Federal Statistical Office (FSO). Last year, 7900 deaths per million inhabitants were recorded for women and 7400 per million for men. This corresponds to a decrease of around 250 deaths per million inhabitants, as Unisanté emphasizes.

It remains to be seen whether this upward trend will continue or whether the life expectancy curve will flatten out or slow down, as is the case in other countries, Unisanté noted.

SDA