Population Health and Aging Flashcards
Life span
length of an individual life in years
Life expectancy
average age of death in a population
Difference between life span and life expectancy
life span is an individual measure based on one person’s experiences and behaviors while life expectancy is based on the current set of conditions and for a group not one individual
Cohort life expectancy
average lifespan in a birth cohort
Period life expectancy
average number of years a baby born today would live if today’s birth cohort experienced today’s ASFRs and sex specific mortality rates as they move through life
Mortality regime
patterns of how people die
Morbidity
prevalence of disease in a population
Compression of mortality
deaths are increasingly occurring later in life over a smaller range of ages
Rectangularization of the survival curve
The survival curve becomes to look more like a rectangle the more mortality is compressed
Chronological age
how many calendar years a person has been alive
Biological age
combines information from multiple physiological systems to estimate individual’s positions on aging trajectory (how old their body is/feels)
Sociological age
societal expectations associated with a certain chronological age
Subjective age
self explanations for a given age (how old someone views themself)
Aging effect
increased median chronological age of population; how is the overall health of the population changing because the chronological age is increasing?
Longevity effect
decreased median biological age of the population; how is the overall health of the population changing because the biological age is decreasing?
Ways to think about population aging
Increase in median age of population, increase in percent of the population who are older than working age
What causes population aging
Improved survival at older ages, declined fertility, migration
Potential economic costs to population aging
need more funding to social services, increases economic burden on young workers, less economic growth
Potential solutions to population aging
working later in life, reduce pensions, increase taxes, incentivize savings, increase immigration, increase fertility
Considerations for solving the population aging problem
pace, socioeconomic inequality, geography, generational equity
Compression of morbidity
chronological age is increasing and biological age is decreasing
Expansion of morbidity
chronological age is increasing faster than biological age is decreasing (or biological age is increasing)
Age inflation
age adjusted life expectancy concept
Old age dependency ratio
(number of old age dependents >64yo)/(number of supporters 15-64)
Population health reversal
When the health of a population declines, especially when life expectancy begins to decline OR counteracting trends prevent life expectancy from improving
Mid life mortality
deaths to adults between 25 and 64 or adults in midlife
Causes of mid life mortality today
social inequality, deaths of despair/social isolation
Deaths of despair
individual level deaths during mid life due to preventable, specific causes such as drug overdoses and alcohol related deaths
3 dynamics leading to deaths of despair
changing labor markets and stratification processes, increases in pain prevalence, increased availability of opioids
