Abstract
Research remains inconclusive on whether increased longevity is resulting in disability compression. Using the Health and Retirement Study and multistate models, this study is the first to examine trends (between 1996–2006 and 2008–18) across multiple key aspects of disability burden: namely, lifetime risk and age at onset of disability; recovery and mortality of the disabled; and disability-free life expectancy (DFLE) at age 50 in the United States’ older population. Furthermore, we differentiate these trends by key socio-demographic factors: sex, race/ethnicity, and educational attainment. The analysis shows that over four-fifths of the total life expectancy increase at age 50 was in DFLE. This was accompanied by a one-year postponement in disability onset and insignificant recovery from disability. However, lifetime risk of disability remained unchanged between periods. Disability trends improved more for women than men. Latinx and the lowest-educated adults experienced no improvement in disability onset. The lowest-educated Whites exhibited substantial health deterioration.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Number of pages | 23 |
| Journal | Population Studies |
| Volume | Latest Articles |
| Early online date | 14 Mar 2025 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | E-pub ahead of print - 14 Mar 2025 |
Keywords
- Gender
- Race/ethnicity
- Education
- United States
- Disability trends
- Mortality trends
- Multistate models
- Compression of morbidity
- Expansion of morbidity
- Dynamic equilibrium
Access to Document
- Sharma_2025_PS_Disparities-by-sex-race-education-disability-burden-US_CC
© 2025 The Author(s). This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.