title: Trends Over 4 Decades in Disability-Free Life Expectancy in the United States.
abstract: To examine changes over 40 years (1970-2010) in life expectancy, life expectancy with disability, and disability-free life expectancy for American men and women of all ages.
  
  
  
  We used mortality rates from US Vital Statistics and data on disability prevalence in the community-dwelling population from the National Health Interview Survey; for the institutional population, we computed disability prevalence from the US Census. We used the Sullivan method to estimate disabled and disability-free life expectancy for 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, and 2010.
  
  
  
  Over the 40 years, there was a steady increase in both disability-free life expectancy and disabled life expectancy. At birth, increases in disabled life and nondisabled life were equal for men (4.5 years); for women, at birth the increase in life with disability (3.6 years) exceeded the increase in life free of disability (2.7 years). At age 65 years, the increase in disability-free life was greater than the increase in disabled life.
  
  
  
  Across the life cycle, there was no compression of morbidity, but at age 65 years some compression occurred.
authors.affiliation: Eileen M. Crimmins and Yuan Zhang are with the Davis School of Gerontology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles. Yasuhiko Saito is with the University Research Center and School of Medicine, Nihon University, Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: Eileen M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Crimmins
authors.affiliation: Eileen M. Crimmins and Yuan Zhang are with the Davis School of Gerontology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles. Yasuhiko Saito is with the University Research Center and School of Medicine, Nihon University, Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: Yuan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Eileen M. Crimmins and Yuan Zhang are with the Davis School of Gerontology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles. Yasuhiko Saito is with the University Research Center and School of Medicine, Nihon University, Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: Yasuhiko
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Saito
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D017677:Age Distribution; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D006233:Persons with Disabilities / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008017:Life Expectancy / Q000639:trends*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015995:Prevalence; D017678:Sex Distribution; D014481:United States; D055815:Young Adult