Providing new impetus to corporate well-being programmes: improving life expectancy through risk assessment

Diseases of the circulatory system are leading causes of death, which compel stakeholders to lessen cardiovascular risks by utilising more effective prevention. These risks can be estimated based on gender, age, smoker status, systolic blood pressure, and total cholesterol. Artificial neural networks enable modelling of 10-year cardiovascular mortality rates. Understandable communica-tion of potential gains in life expectancy may enhance health consciousness through mitigating behavioural risks. The reproduction of death statistics requires the adjustment of the recommended probabilities for the occurrence of fatal cardiovascular events. This study deals with countries at high and low cardiovascular risk, selecting Hungary and the Czech Republic (high risk) and Austria (low risk). In Hungary, the gains in life expectancy are (43.4 – 36.2 =) 7.21 years for fe-males and (37.4 – 28.0 =) 9.4 years for males, both aged 40. These figures moderate to (21.2 – 15.6 =) 5.72 and (17.1 – 11.3 =) 5.8 years for elderly people aged 65, respectively. The Czech Republic represents an interim phase between the two other countries regarding ad-vancement in life expectancy, the respective gains exceed the Hungarian values: (45.8 – 37.8 =) 8.0, (39.7 – 29.7 =) 10.0, (23.0 – 16.6 =) 6.4, and (18.2 – 12.3 =) 5.9 years. In contrast, a 40-year-old woman may benefit from an additional (46.6 – 41.3 =) 5.3 years in Austria, while the corresponding accrual for men is (42.3 – 35.7 =) 6.6 years. On reaching 65 years, the increment is (23.4 – 19.3 =) 4.1 and (20.0 – 16.1 =) 3.9 years.