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Do Elite Athletes Live Longer? A Systematic Review of Mortality and Longevity in Elite Athletes

Overview of attention for article published in Sports Medicine - Open, August 2015
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • One of the highest-scoring outputs from this source (#10 of 604)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (99th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (85th percentile)

Mentioned by

news
6 news outlets
blogs
6 blogs
twitter
256 X users
facebook
2 Facebook pages
wikipedia
2 Wikipedia pages
reddit
1 Redditor
video
3 YouTube creators

Citations

dimensions_citation
80 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
163 Mendeley
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Title
Do Elite Athletes Live Longer? A Systematic Review of Mortality and Longevity in Elite Athletes
Published in
Sports Medicine - Open, August 2015
DOI 10.1186/s40798-015-0024-x
Pubmed ID
Authors

Srdjan Lemez, Joseph Baker

Abstract

Understanding of an athlete's lifespan is limited with a much more sophisticated knowledge of their competitive careers and little knowledge of post-career outcomes. In this review, we consider the relationship between participation at elite levels of sport and mortality risk relative to other athletes and age- and sex-matched controls from the general population. Our objective was to identify, collate, and disseminate a comprehensive list of risk factors associated with longevity and trends and causes of mortality among elite athletes. English language articles were searched using the Web of Science database. Keywords athletes, death, elite, "high performance" life expect*, longevity, mortality, players, professional, and sport were used to locate research articles. Seventeen additional articles were retrieved from reference lists found in these papers and a general web search. The inclusion criteria were the following: (1) publication year 1980 or later; (2) the study examined elite-level athletes; and (3) outcome data measured mortality/longevity trends and/or causes. Fifty-four peer-reviewed publications and three articles from online sources met the criteria for inclusion. Baseball, football, soccer, basketball, and cycling had the most reported data on elite athletes' lifespan longevities. A variety of mechanisms have attempted to explain mortality risk (e.g., handedness, playing position, achievement, etc.). Considerable support was found for superior longevity outcomes for elite athletes, particularly those in endurance and mixed sports. Future research into the mechanisms that may affect mortality risk is important for a better understanding of life expectancies in both eminent and non-eminent populations. Participation in elite sport is generally favorable to lifespan longevity. A majority of studies included in this review reported superior lifespan longevity outcomes for elite athletes compared to age- and sex-matched controls from the general population and other athletes.Several mechanisms within and between sports may have powerful effects on the overall lifespan longevities of players (e.g., type of sport, playing position, race, and energy system).Future research on mortality in elite athletes would benefit from more comprehensive statistical measures and reliable databases to determine potential mechanisms that may influence mortality trends and causes in both athlete and non-athlete samples.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 256 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 163 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Indonesia 1 <1%
Malaysia 1 <1%
Ireland 1 <1%
Brazil 1 <1%
Unknown 159 98%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 21 13%
Student > Bachelor 21 13%
Researcher 19 12%
Student > Ph. D. Student 17 10%
Other 9 6%
Other 37 23%
Unknown 39 24%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Sports and Recreations 48 29%
Medicine and Dentistry 33 20%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 7 4%
Psychology 5 3%
Nursing and Health Professions 5 3%
Other 17 10%
Unknown 48 29%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 254. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 16 January 2024.
All research outputs
#146,007
of 25,559,053 outputs
Outputs from Sports Medicine - Open
#10
of 604 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#1,524
of 276,511 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Sports Medicine - Open
#1
of 7 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,559,053 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 99th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 604 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 26.8. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 276,511 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 7 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has scored higher than all of them