Matrix methods in health demography: a new approach to the stochastic analysis of healthy longevity and DALYs.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Increases in human longevity have made it critical to distinguish healthy longevity from longevity without regard to health. Current methods focus on expectations of healthy longevity, and are often limited to binary health outcomes (e.g., disabled vs. not disabled). We present a new matrix formulation for the statistics of healthy longevity, based on health prevalence data and Markov chain theory, applicable to any kind of health outcome and which provides variances and higher moments as well as expectations of healthy life.

Method

The model is based on a Markov chain description of the life course coupled with the moments of health outcomes ("rewards") at each age or stage. As an example, we apply the method to nine European countries using the SHARE survey data

SUBMITTER: Caswell H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5992869 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature