Abstract
Introduction: There remains uncertainty around the impact of war on the lifespan of First World War (WW1) veterans.
Methods: We obtained lifespan data on a random sample of 857 war-exposed New Zealand WW1 veterans and compared this with lifespans of a non-war military cohort (n=1039). This comparison was possible as the non-war-cohort arrived in Europe too late to participate in the war, allowing a “natural experiment” that avoided the “healthy solider effect”.
Results: The lifespan comparisons indicated lower mean lifespan in the war-exposed veteran cohort compared to the non-war veteran cohort (69.7 vs 71.1 years; p=0.0405). This gap persisted (range: 0.8 to 1.1 years) but was no longer statistically significant when only considering the non-Māori ethnic grouping (nearly all European/Pākehā personnel), when excluding additional deaths in the immediate post-war period up to 31 December 1923, and when excluding participation in any other wars. Within the war-exposed cohort there were suggestive patterns of increasing lifespan with increasing occupational status and military rank (eg, 69.5, 70.0 and 70.7 mean years as group-level occupational status progressively increased). There were also stark differences in lifespan of 8.3 years between Māori (Indigenous) and non-Māori veterans (p=0.0083).
Conclusions: The pattern of reduced lifespan in war-exposed vs non-war-exposed veterans, was compatible with a smaller previous New Zealand study. There are a number of feasible avenues to further improve this type of work with existing data sources.
Methods: We obtained lifespan data on a random sample of 857 war-exposed New Zealand WW1 veterans and compared this with lifespans of a non-war military cohort (n=1039). This comparison was possible as the non-war-cohort arrived in Europe too late to participate in the war, allowing a “natural experiment” that avoided the “healthy solider effect”.
Results: The lifespan comparisons indicated lower mean lifespan in the war-exposed veteran cohort compared to the non-war veteran cohort (69.7 vs 71.1 years; p=0.0405). This gap persisted (range: 0.8 to 1.1 years) but was no longer statistically significant when only considering the non-Māori ethnic grouping (nearly all European/Pākehā personnel), when excluding additional deaths in the immediate post-war period up to 31 December 1923, and when excluding participation in any other wars. Within the war-exposed cohort there were suggestive patterns of increasing lifespan with increasing occupational status and military rank (eg, 69.5, 70.0 and 70.7 mean years as group-level occupational status progressively increased). There were also stark differences in lifespan of 8.3 years between Māori (Indigenous) and non-Māori veterans (p=0.0083).
Conclusions: The pattern of reduced lifespan in war-exposed vs non-war-exposed veterans, was compatible with a smaller previous New Zealand study. There are a number of feasible avenues to further improve this type of work with existing data sources.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Publisher | MedRxiv |
| Number of pages | 14 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 30 Sept 2022 |
| Externally published | Yes |