Active life expectancy: concepts and a new model approach

The question about an increasing health burden due to the ongoing aging process of the population has been discussed in the scientific community for a very long time. The concept of active life expectancy seems to be a suitable instrument to test the controversial perceptions about compression or expansion of morbidity in old age. A new model is proposed and described based on the Sullivan method which does not quantify the change in active life expectancy at a certain age, as is common practice. In fact a new model, which measures the difference in active life expectancy at a specific general remaining life expectancy over time (DRALE model), seems to be much more appropiate. Thus cohort effects can be excluded. Finally, possible restrictions in the course of an empirical testing are presented and discussed. Main restrictions are the increasing heterogeneity of aging populations, the availability of appropriate data, and the high variance of raw data in old age.