The Effect of Winning an Oscar Award on Survival: Correcting for Healthy Performer Survivor Bias With a Rank Preserving Structural Accelerated Failure Time Model

We study the causal effect of winning an Oscar Award on an actor or actress’s survival. Does the increase in social rank from a performer winning an Oscar increase the performer’s life expectancy? Previous studies of this issue have suffered from healthy performer survivor bias, that is, candidates who are healthier will be able to act in more films and have more chance to win Oscar Awards. To correct this bias, we adapt Robins’ rank preserving structural accelerated failure time model and g-estimation method. We show in simulation studies that this approach corrects the bias contained in previous studies. We estimate that the effect of winning an Oscar Award on survival is 4.2 years, with a 95% confidence interval of [ 0.4,8.4] years. There is not strong evidence that winning an Oscar increases life expectancy. 1. Introduction. Does an increase in a social animal’s social “rank” cause the animal to live longer? This question has been studied extensively in both nonhuman primates and humans. Animals with social ranks that experience more stress have been shown to experience adverse adrenocortical, cardiovascular, reproductive, immunological, and neurobiological consequences [Sapolsky (2005)]. Redelmeier and Singh (2001) studied the impact of social rank on lifetime in an intriguing context: among Hollywood actors and actresses, does winning an Oscar Award (Academy Award) cause the actor’s/actress’s expected lifetime to increase? In Redelmeier and Singh’s most emphasized comparison (the one cited in their abstract), they stated that life expectancy was 3.9 years longer for Oscar Award winners than for other less recognized performers and that this difference corresponded to a 28%