Older Americans are living longer than ever, but are they enjoying those years in good health? That question is posed by a National Bureau of Economic Research study, which measured the health status of the elderly in the years prior to death based on data from the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey.
There is good news to report: life expectancy at age 65 is growing, and so are years of healthy life. The average 65-year-old in 2003-05 could expect to live an additional 18.2 years in total, up from 17.5 years for their counterparts in 1991-93. Of those 18.2 years of life, 10.4 years are lived free of disability, up from 8.8 disability-free years for 65-year-olds in 1991-93. The number of years of expected life lived with a disability fell from 8.7 years in the earlier time period to 7.8 years in the 2000s.
But the findings are different if healthy life is defined as one without disease rather than disability. Disease-free life expectancy has increased, but so has life expectancy with a major disease (defined as cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, pulmonary disease, heart attack, heart disease, stroke, broken hip, arthritis, or diabetes). Of the 18.2 years of total life expectancy for 65-year-olds in 2003-05, 8.6 years are lived free of disease, up from 8.0 disease-free years for their counterparts in 1991-93. But the number of years of expected life lived with a major disease also climbed, from 9.5 years in the earlier time period to 9.7 years in the 2000s.
Source: National Bureau of Economic Research, Evidence for Significant Compression of Morbidity in the Elderly U.S. Population, NBER Working Paper 19268
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