Survival estimates for elite male and female Olympic athletes and tennis championship competitors

D. Coate, R. Sun

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

12 Scopus citations

Abstract

In this paper, we report survival estimates for male and female Olympic medal winners and for male and female finalists at the British and U S national tennis championships. We find a consistent longevity advantage of Olympic medal-winning female athletes over Olympic medal-winning male athletes competing separately in the same events since 1900 and for female finalists over male finalists competing separately in the finals of the national tennis championships of Britain and of the United States since the 1880s. This is the case for sample mean comparisons, for Kaplan-Meier survival function estimates, including life expectancy, and for Cox proportional hazard estimates, which show statistically significant lower hazard rates for women with birth year and other variables constant. The female longevity advantage over males is similar in the early period samples (birth years before1920) and in the full period samples, and is 5-7years.

Original languageAmerican English
Pages (from-to)722-727
Number of pages6
JournalScandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports
Volume23
Issue number6
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 2013

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Orthopedics and Sports Medicine
  • Physical Therapy, Sports Therapy and Rehabilitation

Keywords

  • Olympic athletes
  • Women's athletic participation
  • Women's health

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