Patient-Reported Risk Factors Accurately Predicted 5-Year Mortality Risk

When investigators study predictors of mortality, they usually consider only elders, a few risk factors, or small populations. Now, analyzing data from almost 500,000 British participants (age range, 37–73) in a biobank, researchers determined sex-specific associations of 655 baseline demographic, health, and lifestyle variables with 5-year all-cause mortality and with six categories of cause-specific mortality.

Self-reported health and previous cancer diagnosis were the strongest predictors of 5-year all-cause mortality in men and women, respectively. Among patients without major diseases at baseline, smoking behaviors predicted mortality most strongly in both sexes. Self-reported measures of health and medical history were the strongest pr…