Study alerts of longer life, but more years with poorer health

This is the first time researchers study life expectancy with good or bad health in different European countries during 30 years and compare the data collected.

The study “L'augment de la longevitat a Europa: afegint anys a la vida o vida als anys?” [Increase in Longetivity in Europe: adding years to life, or life to years?] which was published recently in the journal Perspectives Demogràfiques and conducted by the UAB Centre for Demographic Studies (CED) by researchers Iñaki Permanyer and Octavio Bramajo, alert of the need to put into practice public policies to deal with the growing morbidity rates appearing in Europe. Researchers explored to what extent increases in longetivity in Europe in the past 30 years were lived in good or in bad health, focusing not only on quantity, but also on the quality of the increase in years.

For their study, researchers used data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Avaluation (Global Burden of Disease), which provides indicators from 204 countries and regions from 1990 up to the present, and which allowed them to calculate future life expectancy (EV), healthy life expectancy or with good health (EVS) and unhealthy life expectancy or with poor health (EVNS). It is the first time a research is conducted with an international perspective to study life expectancy with good and poor health in different European countries with data from the past 30 years, and then compared.

Centenarians, but... no health?

According to this research, future increases in life expectancy, evntually reaching and surpassing 100 years, may represent a major social challenge, particularly if they are accompanied by an increase not only in morbidity, but aslo in co-morbidity (i.e., people suffering from more than one disease at a time).

If a fall in mortality rates are not accompanied by am equal fall in morbidity rates, members of that society will tend to live longer, but in poorer health, a phenomenon with enormous consequences for the sustainability of current healthcare and pension systems.

The study provides empirical evidence that the proportion of life expectancy accompanied by poor health is greater among women and tends to increase the older they age.

“All of this suggests that there is an ever growing need to provide resources that can reduce morbidity, either through prevention campaigns that may push back the onset of diseases or disabilities (e.g., promoting healthy lifestyles and inclusive and sustainable socioeconomic environments) or by investing in treatments and technological innovations”, explains researcher Iñaki Permanyer.

Changes in life expectancy from 1990 to 2019 in the great majority of European countries can be explained by an increase in healthy life expectancies, which always overpass 60% of the total. However, the higher the initial life expectancy (in 1990), the greater the subsequent increases were accompanied by poorer health, particularly among women.

The case of Spain stands out

Life expectancy for those born in Spain in the year 1950 was of 64.2 years (women) and 59.3 years (men), and since then until now, this life expectancy has steadily increased until reaching 85.1 for women and 79.6 for men in 2020.

As one of the countries with the highest rate of longevity (with an EV in 2019 of 80 years), the case of Spain stands out due to the fact that the proportion of years lived in good health (EVS) is high when compared to other countries with a similar longevity rate. The proportion of years lived in good health was greater among men. What was observed was that although life expectancy was higher among women, this came at the cost of living more years with poor health.

The situation in each European country

A certain disparity was seen in the evolution of life expectancy in the different regions of Europe. Central and Eastern Europe presented the worst results, while Southern and Western Europe fared the best, with results that were similar in both regions. In the middle was Northern Europe, which is close in numbers to Southern and Western Europe (maybe due to the inclusion of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia in the study). By gender, the life expectancy indicators analysed presented higher values for women.

On one side of the study, there were the least long-living societies in 1990 such as Russia and Latvia (with 64 and 64.6 years life expectancy for men), in which over 90% of all subsequent increases in life expectancy between 1990 and 2019 were attributable to healthy life expectancies.

On the other side, in those longer-living countries in 1990, such as Switzerland and France (with 81.3 years life expectancy for women), only 60% of subsequent increases during the following 30 years were attributable to healthy life expectancies.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE: https://ced.cat/PD/PerspectivesDemografiques_028_CAT.pdf