The Healthy Cross-Sectional Average Length of Life (HCAL)

Markus Sauerberg , Vienna Institute of Demography
Michel Guillot, University of Pennsylvania
Marc Luy, Vienna Institute of Demography

In this paper, we explore a new morbidity and mortality summary measure: The Healthy Cross-Sectional Average Length of Life (HCAL). It extends the Cross-Sectional Average Length of Life (CAL) to the health dimension by using Sullivan's method. We argue that applying CAL instead of conventional period life expectancy (LE) to Sullivan's method is more suitable from a conceptual point of view. In addition, HCAL features a population dynamics interpretation, which can be useful to assess dynamics in population health. We illustrate the method with data for France between 2004 and 2015 and the UK between 2005 and 2015. Moreover, we compare HCAL estimates with conventional healthy life expectancy (HLE) estimates by analyzing time trends in absolute, respective relative terms, and gender gap differences in healthy life years. We conclude that HCAL gives an alternative view on health and mortality, which adds useful insights to this field of research.

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 Presented in Session 165. Mathematical Demography