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The Effect of altering ADL thresholds on active life expectancy estimates for older persons.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Lynch, SM; Brown, JS; Harmsen, KG
Published in: The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences
May 2003

Research on disability and active life expectancy (ALE) has often criticized the measurement of disability but has rarely empirically investigated the effect of changing measurement. The purpose of this study was to determine whether altering the number of activities of daily living (ADLs) required to consider an individual "disabled" affects population-based ALE estimates after considering parametric uncertainty and sampling error.The authors develop a Bayesian approach to estimating multistate life tables for a three-dimensional state space, using data on community-dwelling older adults from the 1989 and 1994 National Long Term Care Survey analytic files. Empirical confidence intervals for ALE are compared across 6 models using successively higher ADL cutoffs for defining individuals as being disabled.After considering sampling and other errors in the estimation of transition probabilities, the authors found that altering the threshold for measuring disability has relatively little effect on ALE estimates, especially with higher ADL-level thresholds and at older ages.The implications of the results include that disability measurement, including altering the definition of being disabled and possibly expanding the state space of a model, may not affect population-based estimates of ALE.

Duke Scholars

Published In

The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences

DOI

EISSN

1758-5368

ISSN

1079-5014

Publication Date

May 2003

Volume

58

Issue

3

Start / End Page

S171 / S178

Related Subject Headings

  • United States
  • Sampling Studies
  • Male
  • Long-Term Care
  • Life Tables
  • Life Expectancy
  • Humans
  • Health Surveys
  • Gerontology
  • Female
 

Citation

APA
Chicago
ICMJE
MLA
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Lynch, S. M., Brown, J. S., & Harmsen, K. G. (2003). The Effect of altering ADL thresholds on active life expectancy estimates for older persons. The Journals of Gerontology. Series B, Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 58(3), S171–S178. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/58.3.s171
Lynch, Scott M., J Scott Brown, and Katherine G. Harmsen. “The Effect of altering ADL thresholds on active life expectancy estimates for older persons.The Journals of Gerontology. Series B, Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences 58, no. 3 (May 2003): S171–78. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/58.3.s171.
Lynch SM, Brown JS, Harmsen KG. The Effect of altering ADL thresholds on active life expectancy estimates for older persons. The journals of gerontology Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences. 2003 May;58(3):S171–8.
Lynch, Scott M., et al. “The Effect of altering ADL thresholds on active life expectancy estimates for older persons.The Journals of Gerontology. Series B, Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, vol. 58, no. 3, May 2003, pp. S171–78. Epmc, doi:10.1093/geronb/58.3.s171.
Lynch SM, Brown JS, Harmsen KG. The Effect of altering ADL thresholds on active life expectancy estimates for older persons. The journals of gerontology Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences. 2003 May;58(3):S171–S178.
Journal cover image

Published In

The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences

DOI

EISSN

1758-5368

ISSN

1079-5014

Publication Date

May 2003

Volume

58

Issue

3

Start / End Page

S171 / S178

Related Subject Headings

  • United States
  • Sampling Studies
  • Male
  • Long-Term Care
  • Life Tables
  • Life Expectancy
  • Humans
  • Health Surveys
  • Gerontology
  • Female