Many of the indigenous inhabitants of the Americas were slaughtered or died from disease during the age of discovery. How did the first european invaders fare in comparison? Did they die en masse as well? Was it safer for an average soldier to go with a conquistador and fight the american tribes or to stay on the continent and maybe fight in some european war?
Great question! Most studies have shown that Spaniards survived at very high rates with many conquistadors living in to old age 50+.
There have been a number of good prosopographical studies. James Lockhart examined the conquest of Peru in Men of Cajamarca. John Schwaller recent looked at Cortes's company in The First Letter from New Spain.
There are other studies for Colombia and other regions but most are in Spanish. Schwaller compares his example to several of those.
In Matthew Restall's Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest he posits that the military technology used by Spaniards (iron weapons and at times armor, horses, firearms) did more to ensure the survival of Spanish participants than defeating native peoples, Spaniards' native allies did that work.
One other sign of survivability is that most Spaniards participated in multiple conquests. Moving from one to the next in the hopes of improving their circumstances.