ABSTRACT

The health expectancy approach has now been extended to incorporate the modern concepts of the disablement process: chronic morbidity, physical dependency and progressively more attention has been devoted to mental health expectancy. Monitoring morbidity, mortality and longevity developments in the UN-European Region implies harmonized national health and ageing surveys. In January 2000, the US Department of Health and Human Services launched Healthy People 2010, a comprehensive, nationwide health promotion and disease prevention agenda. Life expectancy without long-term activity limitation was then selected to be one of the structural indicators under the name of 'Healthy Life Years' (HLY). Compression and expansion of disability are determined through the relationships over time of life expectancy and HLY or indeed in the proportion of remaining life expectancy spent free of disability. The feasibility study for HLY, conducted by Eurostat in conjunction with the European Health Expectancy Monitoring Unit used the European Community Household Panel survey, the then current data source for DFLE calculation.