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In China, the “oldest-old” urban dwellers are experiencing less disability and, for some, longer life expectancy

Collin F. Payne, PhD, a fellow in a recent cohort of our Bell Postdoctoral Fellows, is an author on a paper published in BMC Medicine that examines both life expectancy and disability-free life expectancy among those cohorts born 1919–1928 and 1909–1918 in China. The findings could be instrumental in helping shape policy and programs in this country, which is one of the most rapidly aging societies in the world. Photo: Rod…

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Measuring frailty—a key predictor of mortality and morbidity in higher income countries—in the now aging South African population

South African women

A team of researchers affiliated with HAALSI, a project focused on the aging population in South Africa, has published a study in BMC Geriatrics that finds frailty to be associated with worse health and well being, and earlier death in an aging, rural South African population.

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Are those Americans living longer also living healthier?

Person walking with a cane

It is commonly thought that those who live the longest typically experience a condensed period of illness (compression of morbidity) as opposed to many years of chronic illness. However, a recent study published in Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health by former Harvard Pop Center Bell Fellow Hiram Beltrán-Sánchez, PhD, and faculty member SV Subramanian, PhD, suggests that older adults in the U.S. are experiencing a greater disease burden in…

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In assessing whether those living longer are also living healthier, broader view of morbidity needed

In the current volume of Global Health Action, three researchers affiliated with the Harvard Pop Center — former Bell Fellow Hiram Beltran-Sanchez, PhD, current Bell Fellow Fahad Razak, MD, and faculty member SV Subramanian (Subu), PhD — have authored a study that challenges the widely accepted, disability based definition of morbidity in the compression of morbidity framework.

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Do differences in social policy underlie an important part of the US health disadvantage?

A paper co-authored by  Ichiro Kawachi, MD, PhD, titled “Why Do Americans Have Shorter Life Expectancy and Worse Health Than Do People in Other High-Income Countries?” published in the Annual Review of Public Health examines whether crucial differences in social policy may play an important role in why US Americans lead shorter and less healthy lives than do people in other high-income countries.