Trends in population health and demography – Authors' reply

The data and models are transparent, peer-reviewed, and follow the Guidelines for Accurate and Transparent Health Estimates Reporting.6 They also claim that our fertility model is based on uncertain future pathways. [...]Gietel-Basten and Sobotka claim that our mortality forecasts are overly pessimistic. Mortality has almost no effect on population, and in fact, a slow down or stagnation in life-expectancy growth have been observed in many countries in the past decade.7–9 Given the obesity epidemic and other adverse trends in risk factors, we might, in many instances, have been overly optimistic in our forecasts of mortality.