Healthy lifespan inequality: morbidity compression from a global perspective

AbstractCurrent measures of population health lack indicators capturing the variability in age-at-morbidity onset, an important marker to assess the timing patterns of individuals ’ health deterioration and evaluate the compression of morbidity. We provide global, regional, and national estimates of the variability in morbidity onset from 1990 to 2019 using indicators of healthy lifespan inequality (HLI). Using data from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019, we reconstru ct age-at-death distributions to calculate lifespan inequality (LI), and age-at-morbidity onset distributions to calculate HLI. We measure LI and HLI with the standard deviation. Between 1990 and 2019, global HLI decreased from 24.74 years to 21.92, and has been decreasing in all regions except in h igh-income countries, where it has remained stable. Countries with high HLI are more present in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia, whereas low HLI values are predominant in high-income countries and central and eastern Europe. HLI tends to be higher for females than for males, and HLI tends to be hi gher than LI. Globally, between 1990 and 2019 HLI at age 65 increased from 6.83 years to 7.44 for females, and from 6.23 to 6.96 for males. Improvements in longevity are not necessarily accompanied by further reductions in HLI among longevity vanguard countries. Morbidity is compressing, except in h igh-income countries, where it stagnates. The variability in the ages at morbidity onset tends to be larger than the...
Source: European Journal of Epidemiology - Category: Epidemiology Source Type: research