Changes in the health of the Spanish population over the last 20 years: an approach analysing the evolution of healthy life expectancy

Unai Martin, UPV/EHU
Rosa Gomez-Redondo, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED)

Objective The goal of this paper is to analyse the evolution of the health of the Spanish population, using a measurement which integrates mortality and health: healthy life expectancy over the last 20 years. Methods Life expectancy and healthy life expectancy at birth were calculated for the 1993 - 2009 period in Spain. For calculating life expectancy, Chiang's abridged life table (last age interval was 85 years or more) was used (Chiang, 1984), and for healthy life expectancy we used the Sullivan method (Sullivan, 1971).Good health was calculated based on self-reported health Results Healthy life expectancy increased for men and women, but more for men (6.9 years) than for women (5.7 years). In both genders the increase was greater than that of life expectancy. The greatest increase was found in the second half of the 1990s and the early 2000s. Unhealthy life expectancy fell in the period studied by 1.7 years for men and 1.9 years for women Conclusions The evolution of the health of the Spanish population in the 1993 - 2012 periods is close to a scenario of compression of morbidity for both men and women.