Background

This project involved mapping the deeper drivers of deteriorating later-life quality to identify ways of reversing the current trend of extra-life years lived with disabilities. We particularly focussed on the impact of long-term conditions and multiple conditions

Aims and objectives

We aimed to answer the following questions:

• Are the extra years lived with disability and dependency due to:
  • Increased incidence of disability/dependency?
  • Reduced ability to return to independence?
  • Longer survival with disability/dependency?
• Are the extra years with disability due to individual long-term conditions becoming more prevalent, or more disabling, or because multiple concurrent conditions (multiple conditions) have increased?
• How do the UK trends in disability-free life expectancy differ from other countries? Specifically, has the plateauing of life expectancy at older ages observed in the UK been evident elsewhere in Europe?

Resources and further information

• Full report: The contribution of single and multiple chronic conditions to the deteriorating time trends in later-life disability Part 1: Incidence, recovery or longer survival? (PDF).
• Executive summary: The contribution of single and multiple chronic conditions to the deteriorating time trends in later-life disability Part 1: Incidence, recovery or longer survival? (PDF).
• Full report: The contribution of single and multiple chronic conditions to the deteriorating time trends in later-life disability Part 2: Single and multiple conditions (PDF).
• Final report: Trends in healthy and disability-free life expectancy in the UK and other high-income countries: a systematic review (PDF).
• Final report: Comparison of trends in life expectancy and disability-free life expectancy between the UK and the remaining countries of the EU28 (PDF).
• Presentation: Trends in health expectancies by late-life disadvantage: the cognitive function and ageing studies (PDF).
• Publication: Healthy ageing for all? Comparisons of socioeconomic inequalities in health expectancies over two decades in the Cognitive Function and Ageing Studies I and II (International Journal of Epidemiology).
• Publication: Trends in life expectancy and healthy life years at birth and age 65 in the UK, 2008–2016, and other countries of the EU28: An observational cross-sectional study (The Lancet Regional Health – Europe).
• Publication: The contribution of multiple long-term conditions to widening inequalities in disability-free life expectancy over two decades: Longitudinal analysis of two cohorts using the Cognitive Function and Ageing Studies (EClinicalMedicine).
• Publication: A comparison over 2 decades of disability-free life expectancy at age 65 years for those with long-term conditions in England: Analysis of the 2 longitudinal Cognitive Function and Ageing Studies (Plos Medicine).
• Publication: Trends in health expectancies: a systematic review of international evidence (BMJ Open).
• Presentation: Multi-morbidity, disadvantage and trends in disability free life expectancy: the CFAS studies (PDF).

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