Life Expectancy Calculator

No. The calculator starts from the SSA 2021 period life table as an actuarial baseline and shows lifestyle inputs as favorable or unfavorable population-level associations; it never adds or subtracts years for them. It is not a medical prediction or a financial planning model. It cannot account for individual diagnoses, genetics, healthcare access, accidents, or many other factors.

The baseline uses selected exact-age values from the SSA 2021 period life table (the table behind the 2024 Trustees Report) at nine anchor ages (10, 18, 30, 50, 65, 80, 90, 100, and 105), with separate values by sex and linear interpolation between anchors. It is a US period table, so it describes the mortality experience of a single calendar year rather than tracking a real birth cohort into the future.

They do not stack numerically. Each input that matches a published population-level association (smoking, heavy daily alcohol, a BMI outside 18.5 to 24.9, very low activity, being married or partnered, high chronic stress, 7 to 9 hours of sleep, parental longevity above 85) is listed in the modifier breakdown as a favorable or unfavorable association, but the estimate itself stays at the SSA baseline for your age and sex. The effect sizes reported in the literature (for example roughly 10 years lost to daily smoking in the US Surgeon General 2014 report, or about 4 years gained from regular moderate exercise) are cohort-level rules of thumb, not personal hazard ratios, and combined risks rarely sum neatly. That is exactly why the calculator leaves the projection unadjusted and flags stacked major risks as 'indicative, many uncontrolled factors' in the confidence label.

By design. The calculator reports the SSA actuarial baseline for your age and sex and shows lifestyle inputs only as qualitative associations in the modifier breakdown. Converting self-reported habits into added or subtracted years would stack population-level effect sizes that do not combine cleanly for an individual, so the projection is left unadjusted and the confidence label tells you how much context your inputs provide.

It should not change. The estimate is the SSA actuarial baseline for your age and sex, and smoking status only appears in the modifier breakdown as an association. Former smoking is flagged as an unfavorable association relative to never smoking, and current smoking as a major one, but neither subtracts years from the projection. Published rules of thumb (roughly 10 years lost for daily smokers, a smaller residual for former smokers) come from population cohorts and are not individualized estimates based on pack-years or time since quitting.