The purpose of this research is to answer the following question. Has the recent reduction in mortality among the older population been accompanied by an improvement in health, or has the mortality decline resulted in an increase in the proportion of the older population with poor health and/or disabling conditions? To answer this question changes and trends in measures of health available from the National Health Interview Survey from 1969 to 1982 will be examined for age-sex-race groups of the older population. Change in these measures will be compared to change in mortality rates for similar age-sex-race groups over the same time period. The hypothesis to be tested is that declining mortality will be accompanied by increasing morbidity. In the next phase of the research, mortality and morbidity measures will be disaggregated by cause. Trends in mortality and morbidity from the ten major causes of old-age mortality will be compared. While it is likely that the relationship between mortality and morbidity change will vary by cause, we expect to find that for the major causes of death in old age, decreased mortality will be accompanied by increased morbidity; for most causes morbidity will have been experienced for a longer time at a given level of activity limitation; but the morbidity will not be as severe after as before the mortality decline. For cancer, the only increasing cause of death among the ten major causes in old age, we expect to find both increasing morbidity and mortality.
| Crimmins, E M; Saito, Y; Reynolds, S L (1997) Further evidence on recent trends in the prevalence and incidence of disability among older Americans from two sources: the LSOA and the NHIS. J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci 52:S59-71 |
| Crimmins, E M; Hayward, M D; Saito, Y (1994) Changing mortality and morbidity rates and the health status and life expectancy of the older population. Demography 31:159-75 |
