Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Jun 26;10(1):10442.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-67166-4.

Prospects of activity limitations among older adults in 23 low and middle income countries

Daniela Weber  1   2 , Sergei Scherbov  3   4   5
Affiliations

Prospects of activity limitations among older adults in 23 low and middle income countries

Daniela Weber et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Increasing life expectancy and a growing share of older people around the world spotlight the issue of health during additional years of life. Research on trends of proportions of older people with activity limitations for low and middle income countries is sparse. We use data from the World Health Survey and the UN World Population Prospects to predict prevalence of activity limitations for 23 low and middle income countries for the upcoming 30 years. Our projections highlight huge variation in the proportion of older adults with limitations across investigated countries and this variation is not expected to diminish. However, these countries are facing considerable demographic changes and even though prevalence rates appear almost constant, absolute numbers are changing which require policy interventions. Furthermore, variations across countries reflect not only disparities in health conditions, but also differences in cultural peculiarities of reporting and historical perception of health.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Men’s and women’s age at which 25% prevalence rate of living with severe activity limitations is attained in 2017 by country.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Men’s and women’s age at which 25% prevalence rate of living with severe activity limitations is attained in 2047 by country.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Jagger C, et al. Mind the gap—reaching the European target of a 2-year increase in healthy life years in the next decade. Eur. J. Public Health. 2013;23:829–833. doi: 10.1093/eurpub/ckt030. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Crimmins EM, Saito Y. Trends in healthy life expectancy in the United States, 1970-1990: Gender, racial, and educational differences. Soc. Sci. Med. 2001;52:1629–1641. doi: 10.1016/S0277-9536(00)00273-2. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Lafortune, G. & Balestat, G. Trends in Severe Disability Among Elderly People: Assessing the Evidence in 12 OECD Countries and the Future Implications, 10.1787/217072070078 (2007).
    1. Lafortune, G., Balestat, G. & Disability Study Expert Group Members. Trends in Severe Disability Among Elderly People: Assessing the Evidence in 12 OECD Countries and the Future Implications, http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/download/217072070078.pdf?expires... (2007).
    1. Scherbov S, Weber D. Future trends in the prevalence of severe activity limitations among older adults in Europe: a cross-national population study using EU-SILC. BMJ Open. 2017;7:e017654. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2017-017654. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types