TY - JOUR AU - Chernew, Michael AU - Cutler, David M AU - Ghosh, Kaushik AU - Landrum, Mary Beth TI - Understanding the Improvement in Disability Free Life Expectancy In the U.S. Elderly Population JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series VL - No. 22306 PY - 2016 Y2 - June 2016 DO - 10.3386/w22306 UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w22306 L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w22306.pdf N1 - Author contact info: Michael Chernew Harvard Medical School Dept. of Health Care Policy 180 Longwood Avenue Boston, MA 02115 Tel: 617/432-0174 Fax: 617/432-2648 E-Mail: chernew@hcp.med.harvard.edu David M. Cutler Department of Economics Harvard University 1875 Cambridge Street Cambridge, MA 02138 Tel: 617/496-5216 Fax: 617/496-8951 E-Mail: dcutler@harvard.edu Kaushik Ghosh NBER 1050 Massachusetts Ave. Cambridge, MA 02138 E-Mail: ghoshk@nber.org Mary Beth Landrum Harvard Medical School Department of Health Care Policy 180 Longwood Avenue Boston, MA 02115-5899 Tel: (617) 432-2460 Fax: (617) 432-2563 E-Mail: landrum@hcp.med.harvard.edu M1 - published as Michael Chernew, David M. Cutler, Kaushik Ghosh, Mary Beth Landrum. "Understanding the Improvement in Disability-Free Life Expectancy in the U.S. Elderly Population," in David A. Wise, editor, "Insights in the Economics of Aging" University of Chicago Press (2017) M3 - presented at "Conference on the Economics of Aging", April 30 - May 2, 2015 AB - Understanding how healthy lifespans are changing is essential for public policy. This paper explores changes in healthy lifespan in the U.S. over time and considers reasons for the changes. We reach three fundamental conclusions. First, we show that healthy life increased measurably in the US between 1992 and 2008. Years of healthy life expectancy at age 65 increased by 1.8 years over that time period, while disabled life expectancy fell by 0.5 years. Second, we identify the medical conditions that contribute the most to changes in healthy life expectancy. The largest improvements in healthy life expectancy come from reduced incidence and improved functioning for those with cardiovascular disease and vision problems. Together, these conditions account for 63 percent of the improvement in disability-free life expectancy. Third and more speculatively, we explore the role of medical treatments in the improvements for these two conditions. We estimate that improved medical care is likely responsible for a significant part of the cardiovascular and vision-related extension of healthy life. ER -