The Perils Of Elections

The recent death of former US President, Jimmy Carter, at the grand old age of 100 brought to mind a study published in the BMJ at Christmas 2015 which looked at the relative longevity of leaders from 17 of the richest countries since 1722. Their sample comprised of 540 candidates for election, 279 winners and 261 runners-up who never held office.

What the research found was that candidates who served as a head of government lived 4.4 fewer years after their last election than did candidates who never served. The inevitable conclusion was that election to head of government is associated with a substantial increase in mortality risk compared with candidates in national elections who failed to secure the public vote.

Clearly, Jimmy Carter was an outlier to this trend, another astonishing metric by which his career can be measured.