Age- and cause-specific components of recent life expectancy improvements in Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia

All ex-Yugoslav countries experienced improvements in life expectancy during the last few decades. This study describes and compares recent life expectancy trends in Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia. What age groups and what causes of death account for the largest mortality declines? Have the three countries joined the cardiovascular revolution? Do patterns differ between countries? And, is there room for further improvements? We use life tables and decomposition methods to address these questions. Our key findings are: 1) lower mortality from circulatory diseases at older ages contributed most to life expectancy growth 2001-2017 for both sexes in all three countries; 2) despite this common pattern, life expectancy in Slovenia grew fastest and the gap between countries increased; 3) under the Slovenian age-specific cardiovascular mortality schedule, Croatia added 1.79 years to both female and male life expectancies, while Serbia added 3.97 and 3.26 to female and male life expectancies