Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1893/31240
Appears in Collections:Faculty of Social Sciences Journal Articles
Peer Review Status: Refereed
Title: Rethinking morbidity compression
Author(s): Seaman, Rosie
Höhn, Andreas
Lindahl-Jacobsen, Rune
Martikainen, Pekka
van Raalte, Alyson
Christensen, Kaare
Keywords: Morbidity compression
Ageing and health
Age at morbidity onset
Hospital admission
Issue Date: May-2020
Date Deposited: 4-Jun-2020
Citation: Seaman R, Höhn A, Lindahl-Jacobsen R, Martikainen P, van Raalte A & Christensen K (2020) Rethinking morbidity compression. European Journal of Epidemiology, 35 (5), pp. 381-388. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10654-020-00642-3
Abstract: Studies of morbidity compression routinely report the average number of years spent in an unhealthy state but do not report variation in age at morbidity onset. Variation was highlighted by Fries (1980) as crucial for identifying disease postponement. Using incidence of first hospitalization after age 60, as one working example, we estimate variation in morbidity onset over a 27-year period in Denmark. Annual estimates of first hospitalization and the population at risk for 1987 to 2014 were identified using population-based registers. Sex-specific life tables were constructed, and the average age, the threshold age, and the coefficient of variation in age at first hospitalization were calculated. On average, first admissions lasting two or more days shifted towards older ages between 1987 and 2014. The average age at hospitalization increased from 67.8 years (95% CI 67.7–67.9) to 69.5 years (95% CI 69.4–69.6) in men, and 69.1 (95% CI 69.1–69.2) to 70.5 years (95% CI 70.4–70.6) in women. Variation in age at first admission increased slightly as the coefficient of variation increased from 9.1 (95% CI 9.0–9.1) to 9.9% (95% CI 9.8–10.0) among men, and from 10.3% (95% CI 10.2–10.4) to 10.6% (95% CI 10.5–10.6) among women. Our results suggest populations are ageing with better health today than in the past, but experience increasing diversity in healthy ageing. Pensions, social care, and health services will have to adapt to increasingly heterogeneous ageing populations, a phenomenon that average measures of morbidity do not capture.
DOI Link: 10.1007/s10654-020-00642-3
Rights: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Licence URL(s): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Files in This Item:
File Description SizeFormat 
Seaman2020_Article_RethinkingMorbidityCompression.pdfFulltext - Published Version936.29 kBAdobe PDFView/Open



This item is protected by original copyright



A file in this item is licensed under a Creative Commons License Creative Commons

Items in the Repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.

The metadata of the records in the Repository are available under the CC0 public domain dedication: No Rights Reserved https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

If you believe that any material held in STORRE infringes copyright, please contact library@stir.ac.uk providing details and we will remove the Work from public display in STORRE and investigate your claim.