Aging, disability, and public health

Abstract

Aging, disability, and public health represent dimensional and dynamic human experiences that can be described at the population level. The absolute numbers of people living past age 65 in the United States is staggering - from 42.2 million in 2010 to 71.5 million in 2030 to 86.7 million in 2050. These numbers will comprise an increasing proportion of the overall population, representing 13.0, 19.6 and 20.6% of the population respectively. In addition to increasing numbers of older people, the characteristics of the population have, and will continue to change - especially in terms of life expectancy. In 1900 life expectancy in the US was 47 years; in 2000 it increased to 77.0, and in 2004 it increased to 77.8 years - a gain of 0.2 years per year in that 4 year period. The fastest growing segment of the population is the age 85 and over cohort, increasing from 6.1 million in 2010 to 9.6 million in 2030 and to 20.9 million in 2050 (Federal Interagency Forum on Aging-Related Statistics, 2008). The changing demographics of the United States and the world have a large impact currently and this impact will increase (Andresen, Cannell, Akhtar, & Barney, 2010; Freedman, 2006). © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.