According to an editorial, the relatively short term departures from secular trends are a cause for serious concern because life expectancy is a key characteristic of human development reflecting current mortality conditions, thus all signs that might predict reversals should be taken seriously. It notes that more equitable and sustainable progress in longevity requires the strengthening of scientific evidence supporting effective international and national policies, though this is not possible without recent and reliable data—a challenge even for some high income countries. Furthermore, reliable register based or census linked data on socioeconomic disparities in mortality are even more scarce, forcing researchers to use nationally unrepresentative survey based or biased cross sectional data. It advises that this kind of evidence should be treated with a great caution.