Disability trends among Italian adult population: a multistate approach

While life expectancy continues to increase in Europe, studies in disability trends have not shown such a clear improvement, resulting in increases, decreases or stagnation in disability prevalence over time, and the debate on health expectancies of European populations is still open. The economic crisis has further complicated this debate and most studies show how the effects of the crisis may affect the health behaviours of populations differently. Few studies on health expectancy have been conducted on the national scale in Italy using the longitudinal approach, mainly due to the lack of a national longitudinal survey on health. The MEHM included in the longitudinal component of SILC gives the opportunity to test this approach in the Italian context. The aim of this study is to estimate the trends in disability at 40 years and over of the Italian population, following a longitudinal approach and using the software IMaCh. Results are consistent with the literature, and backward prevalences computed by the new version of IMaCh (0.99) let us verify that the pattern of a reduced prevalence of disability for younger adults was very typical to specific subgroups, and for many years, but it will disappear in the near future.