Looking forward to a general theory on population aging (original) (raw)
Related papers
2004
According to Wilson (1), ‘‘. . . any plausible unifying theory that seeks to marry longevity, functional disability, and health perception must involve political, social, cultural, psychological, and economic factors.’’ On the contrary, Fries (2) states: ‘‘A general theory of biological aging . . . needs to precede a general theory of population aging, which then could be derived from it, and inconsistencies and contradictions explained.’’ Even, if the latter seems to be tailor-made to answer the former, and vice versa, it is significant that they were both comments on our article, which proposes broad outlines for a general theory on population aging. Their independent suggestions that we did not fully consider the social and political factors as well as the biological factors may indeed indicate that we have achieved a balanced approach. Wilson and Fries are 2 of the 13 scholars, biologists, demographers, epidemiologists, and clinicians, including several geriatricians, who reacte...
Trends in healthy life expectancy in Hong Kong SAR 1996–2008
European Journal of Ageing, 2010
Although Hong Kong has one of the best life expectancy (LE) records in the world, second only to Japan for women, we know very little about the changes in the health status of the older adult population. Our article aims to provide a better understanding of trends in both chronic morbidity and disability for older men and women. The authors
Is the Compression of Morbidity a Universal Phenomenon?
2008
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Demography, 2004
This article demonstrates that disabled life expectancies that are based on conventional multistate life-table methods are significantly underestimated because of the assumption of no changes in functional status between age x and death. We present a new method to correct the bias and apply it to data from a longitudinal survey of about 9,000 oldest-old Chinese aged 80–105 collected in 1998 and 2000. In our application, the age trajectories of disability (activities of daily living—ADL), status-specific death rates, and the probabilities of transitions between ADL states of the oldest-old were investigated for the first time in a developing country. In this article, we report estimates of bias-corrected disabled and active life expectancies of the Chinese oldest-old and demonstrate patterns of large differences associated with initial status, gender, and advances in ages. Using combined information on ADL disabilities and length of having been bedridden before dying, we analyze gend...
Expansion of morbidity: trends in healthy life expectancy of the elderly population
Revista da Associação Médica Brasileira, 2014
Objective: to analyze the changes in life expectancy (LE) and disability-free life expectancy (DFLE) in São Paulo's elderly population to assess the occurrence of compression or expansion of morbidity, between 2000 and 2010. Methods: cross-sectional and population survey, based on official data for the city of São Paulo, Brazil, and data obtained from the Health, Well-Being and Aging Survey (SABE). Functional disability was defined as difficulty in performing at least one basic activity of daily living. The Sullivan method was used to calculate LE and DFLE for the years 2000 to 2010. Results: from 2000 to 2010, there was an increase in disabled life expectancy (DLE) in all age groups and both sexes. The proportion of years of life free of disability, at 60 years of age, decreased from 57.94% to 46.23% in women, and from 75.34% to 63.65% in men. At 75 years of age, this ratio decreased from 47.55% to 34.54% in women, and from 61.31% to 56.01% in men. Conclusion: the expansion of ...