Poor Health and Disability among Older Americans Declined, 1982-2011

Michael Hout, University of California, Berkeley

The continuing rise of life expectancy has led to debates about healthy life span versus prolonged debility at older years. Age-specific self-rated health and indicators of disability are relevant to these debates. This paper estimates age-specific poor health and debility in the US up to age 85 using data on self-rated health and limitations to daily activities from the National Health Interview Survey. These age-specific curves shifted downward between 1982 and 2011, suggesting that older Americans experience poor health and disability later in life than they used to. Data from the General Social Survey confirm the trend and indicate it was already underway in the 1970s. Single-year age curves show a decrease of a few percentage points between ages 62 and 66 -- more in the 2000s than previously -- suggesting that Americans have unmet health-care needs in their late 50s and early 60s (resolved by Medicare at age 65).