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Modelling the Age Dynamics of Chronic Health Conditions: Life-Table-Consistent Transition Probabilities and their Application*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 April 2015

Frank T. Denton
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, McMaster University
Byron G. Spencer*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, McMaster University
*
La correspondance et les demandes de tirés-à-part doivent être adressées à: / Correspondence and requests for offprints should be sent to: Byron G. Spencer, Ph.D. Department of Economics McMaster University 1280 Main Street West Hamilton, ON L8S 4M4 (spencer@mcmaster.ca)

Abstract

Surveys of chronic health conditions provide information about prevalence but not incidence and the process of change within the population. Our study shows how “age dynamics” of chronic conditions – the probabilities of contracting conditions at different ages, of moving from one chronic condition state to another, and of dying – can be inferred from prevalence data for those conditions that can be viewed as irreversible. Transition probability matrices are constructed for successive age groups, with the sequence representing the age dynamics of the health conditions for a stationary population. We simulate the life path of a cohort under the initial probabilities, and again under altered probabilities, to explore the effects of reducing the incidence or mortality rate associated with a particular condition. We show that such surveys of chronic conditions can be made even more valuable by allowing the calculation of the transition probabilities that define the chronic conditions aging process

Résumé

Les sondages sur les conditions de santé chroniques fournissent des informations sur la prédominance mais pas l'incidence et le processus de changement au sein de la population. Notre étude a révelé comment "les dynamiques d'âge" des conditions chroniques—les probabilités de contracter des conditions aux âges divers, de passer d'un état d'une maladie chronique à l'autre, et de mourir—peuvent être déduites des données sur la prédominance de ces conditions, qui peuvent être considerées comme irreversibles. Les matrices de transition de probabilité ont été construites pour les groupes d'âge successifs, la séquence représentant la dynamique d'âge des conditions de santé pour une population sédentaire. Nous avons simulé la trajectoire de vie d'une cohorte sous les probabilités initiales, et encore sous les probabilités altérées, afin d'explorer les effets de la réduction du taux d'incidence ou de la mortalité associée à une condition particulière. Nous avons démontré que ces enquêtes sur les conditions chroniques peuvent être rendues encore plus valables en permettant le calcul des probabilités de transition qui définissent le processus de vieillissement pour des conditions chroniques.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Association on Gerontology 2015 

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Footnotes

*

The authors are grateful to two referees for helpful comments on earlier drafts of the article, and to the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada which provided support through its Major Research Collaborative Initiative to the Research Program on the Social and Economic Dimensions of an Aging Population (SEDAP).

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