Trends in health expectancies in the Netherlands, 1981-1990
bookPart
We studied trends in health expectancies (HE) in the Netherlands from 1981 till 1990. The trends studied are based on perceived health. Because of changes in the questionnaires, it was not justified to use long term and short term disabilities to calculate trends. For the same reasons, we had to restrict the trend-calculations based on perceived health to the years 1983-1990. There is a significant upward trend in life expectancy for men and women. When people, who perceive their health as very good or good are considered to be healthy, for men there is a significant upward trend in HE between 1983 and 1990. For women this is not the case. We found no significant trends in Healthy Life Percentage (HLP). But when other cutoff points between health and p oor health are used, there is a significant trend towards compression of morbidity for men (at birth). The chance that the original WHO-HFA target to increase the HE with 10% by the year 2000 (related to the year 19 85) would have been met for men is 4%, for women 0.2%. The conclusion is that this target was too ambitious to reach. In 1991 the WHO has reconsidered the targets for Health for All by the year 2000. The need is discussed to use the same questionnaire in Health Interview Surveys over the years to externally validate the OECD-indicator and to use a clear definition for the term 'health', because different definitions lead to different results in HE and HLP.
Topics
TNO Identifier
531811
ISBN
2-7420-0009-7
Publisher
John Libbey Eurotext
Source title
Calculation of health expectancies: harmonization, consensus achieved and future perspectives
Editor(s)
Robine, J.M.
Mathers, C.D.
Bone, M.R.
Romieu, I.
Mathers, C.D.
Bone, M.R.
Romieu, I.
Collation
389 p.
Place of publication
Montrouge
Pages
309-320
Files
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