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Objective To determine whether use of oral contraceptives is associated with all cause and cause specific mortality.

Design Prospective cohort study.

Setting Nurses’ Health Study, data collected between 1976 and 2012.

Population 121 701 participants were prospectively followed for 36 years; lifetime oral contraceptive use was recorded biennially from 1976 to 1982.

Main outcome measures Overall and cause specific mortality, assessed throughout follow-up until 2012. Cox proportional hazards models were used to calculate the relative risks of all cause and cause specific mortality associated with use of oral contraceptives.

Results In our population of 121 577 women with information on oral contraceptive use, 63 626 were never users (52%) and 57 951 were ever users (48%). After 3.6 million person years, we recorded 31 286 deaths. No association was observed between ever use of oral contraceptives and all …