Measuring Progress in Population Health: Evaluating Trends in Recovery Rates from the NLTCS/Medicare Data

Anatoliy I. Yashin, Duke University
Igor Akushevich, Duke University
Lucy Akushevich, Duke University

The progress in health care has three major effects on population health. First, it can increase ages at onset of diseases. This can lead to compression of morbidity provided that this shift is larger than increase of the life span. Second, it can reduce mortality rate for individuals in the disease state. As a result, the duration of unhealthy life span will increase. Third, it can increase the recovery rate. In this case, the duration of healthy life span increases even if age at onset and mortality are not affected. In this paper we present the results of analyses of time trends in recovery and fatality rates for selected diseases using the NLTCS/Medicare data. These results indicate importance of taking recovery/remission process into account in evaluating trends in population health. They also suggest the need for evaluating possible dependence between health and survival events associated with recovery and case-fatality rates.