Supercentenarian and remarkable age records exhibit patterns indicative of clerical errors and pension fraud
[A PREPRINT THAT HAS NOT BEEN PEER REVIEWED. THE COMPLETE ABSTRACT, THE VERSION FOOTNOTE AND THE POSTING METADATA READ IN FULL AT SOURCE. THE 67-PAGE FULL TEXT WAS NOT READ, so nothing describes its methods, models, data sources or robustness checks] Newman, S. J. (2024). 'Supercentenarian and remarkable age records exhibit patterns indicative of clerical errors and pension fraud.' bioRxiv, version 3 posted 14 March 2024, 67 pages. doi:10.1101/704080. Sole author, confirmed on the preprint's own byline: Saul Justin Newman, Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science, Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford, and University College, Oxford. CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0. Competing interests: none declared. THE CHALLENGE TO THE EXTREME-AGE RECORDS, CARRIED AT FULL STRENGTH AS A CHALLENGE TO RECORDS AND DATA AND NOT AS A CHARGE AGAINST ANY PERSON. From the abstract: 'In the United States, supercentenarian status is predicted by the absence of vital registration. The state-specific introduction of birth certificates is associated with a 69-82% fall in the number of supercentenarian records. In Italy, England, and France, which have more uniform vital registration, remarkable longevity is instead predicted by poverty, low per capita incomes, shorter life expectancy, higher crime rates, worse health, higher deprivation, fewer 90+ year olds, and residence in remote, overseas, and colonial territories. In England and France, higher old-age poverty rates alone predict more than half of the regional variation in attaining a remarkable age. Only 18% of "exhaustively" validated supercentenarians have a birth certificate, falling to zero percent in the USA, and supercentenarian birthdates are concentrated on days divisible by five: a pattern indicative of widespread fraud and error. Finally, the designated "blue zones" of Sardinia, Okinawa, and Ikaria corresponded to regions with low incomes, low literacy, high crime rate and short life expectancy relative to their national average. As such, relative poverty and short lifespan constitute unexpected predictors of centenarian and supercentenarian status and support a primary role of fraud and error in generating remarkable human age records.' THE VERSION FOOTNOTE IS ITSELF A FACT: 'An extensive critical review has been added, minor structural changes made to the layout of the paper, and a minor mistake in a supplementary figure has been corrected. In addition, a clear refutation of the Okinawan blue zone claims has been added.' STATUS, STATED PLAINLY AND WITHOUT HEDGING IN EITHER DIRECTION: IT IS A PREPRINT AND HAS NOT BEEN PEER REVIEWED, and the search for journal publication was explicit and found none. His broader work on extreme-age records received the inaugural Ig Nobel Prize in Demography in 2024, which is a fact about reception and MUST NOT be used as a substitute for peer review in either direction. Newman is living and no motive is imputed to him.
[A PREPRINT THAT HAS NOT BEEN PEER REVIEWED. THE COMPLETE ABSTRACT, THE VERSION FOOTNOTE AND THE POSTING METADATA READ IN FULL AT SOURCE. THE 67-PAGE FULL TEXT WAS NOT READ, so nothing describes its methods, models, data sources or robustness checks] Newman, S. J. (2024). 'Supercentenarian and remarkable age records exhibit patterns indicative of clerical errors and pension fraud.' bioRxiv, version 3 posted 14 March 2024, 67 pages. doi:10.1101/704080. Sole author, confirmed on the preprint's own byline: Saul Justin Newman, Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science, Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford, and University College, Oxford. CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0. Competing interests: none declared. THE CHALLENGE TO THE EXTREME-AGE RECORDS, CARRIED AT FULL STRENGTH AS A CHALLENGE TO RECORDS AND DATA AND NOT AS A CHARGE AGAINST ANY PERSON. From the abstract: 'In the United States, supercentenarian status is predicted by the absence of vital registration. The state-specific introduction of birth certificates is associated with a 69-82% fall in the number of supercentenarian records. In Italy, England, and France, which have more uniform vital registration, remarkable longevity is instead predicted by poverty, low per capita incomes, shorter life expectancy, higher crime rates, worse health, higher deprivation, fewer 90+ year olds, and residence in remote, overseas, and colonial territories. In England and France, higher old-age poverty rates alone predict more than half of the regional variation in attaining a remarkable age. Only 18% of "exhaustively" validated supercentenarians have a birth certificate, falling to zero percent in the USA, and supercentenarian birthdates are concentrated on days divisible by five: a pattern indicative of widespread fraud and error. Finally, the designated "blue zones" of Sardinia, Okinawa, and Ikaria corresponded to regions with low incomes, low literacy, high crime rate and short life expectancy relative to their national average. As such, relative poverty and short lifespan constitute unexpected predictors of centenarian and supercentenarian status and support a primary role of fraud and error in generating remarkable human age records.' THE VERSION FOOTNOTE IS ITSELF A FACT: 'An extensive critical review has been added, minor structural changes made to the layout of the paper, and a minor mistake in a supplementary figure has been corrected. In addition, a clear refutation of the Okinawan blue zone claims has been added.' STATUS, STATED PLAINLY AND WITHOUT HEDGING IN EITHER DIRECTION: IT IS A PREPRINT AND HAS NOT BEEN PEER REVIEWED, and the search for journal publication was explicit and found none. His broader work on extreme-age records received the inaugural Ig Nobel Prize in Demography in 2024, which is a fact about reception and MUST NOT be used as a substitute for peer review in either direction. Newman is living and no motive is imputed to him.
Written from the a PREPRINT THAT HAS NOT BEEN PEER REVIEWED. THE COMPLETE ABSTRACT, THE VERSION FOOTNOTE AND THE POSTING METADATA READ IN FULL AT SOURCE. THE 67-PAGE FULL TEXT WAS NOT READ, so nothing describes its methods, models, data sources or robustness checks.
What our sources record
Recorded when this source was checked, figures included, with page references and quotation marks removed.
bioRxiv, version 3, 14 March 2024. doi:10.1101/704080