Changements épidémiologiques au Canada: Un regard sur les causes de décès des personnes âgées de 65 ans et plus, 1979-2007

With a lower and lower mortality at younger ages, gains in life expectancy are heavily dependent on improvements in old age survival. However, over the last three decades, life expectancies at ages 65 and 85 did not show a constant rate of progress. Changes in life expectancy come from variations in the prevalence of specific causes of death trends and their interactions. The present thesis looks at the contribution of some causes of death on the changes observed in life expectancies and also at the trends in cause-specific death rates for Canada between 1979 and 2007. Results show that progresses in life expectancy at ages 65 and 85 are still mainly due to decreasing mortality from cardiovascular diseases. However, cardiovascular diseases are not the only causes of death to contribute to the gains in life expectancy. Death rates from the ten leading causes of death in Canada have all declined since the turn of the Century, but with different pathways from 1979 on.