02103cam a22002657 4500001000700000003000500007005001700012008004100029100002100070245011300091260006600204490004200270500001500312520101100327530006101338538007201399538003601471690005501507690006701562700002401629710004201653830007701695856003801772856002701810w17148NBER20140712061924.0140712s2011 mau||||fs|||| 000 0 eng d1 aCutler, David M.10aDimensions of Health in the Elderly Populationh[electronic resource] /cDavid M. Cutler, Mary Beth Landrum. aCambridge, Mass.bNational Bureau of Economic Researchc2011.1 aNBER working paper seriesvno. w17148 aJune 2011.3 aIn this paper, we characterize the multi-faceted health of the elderly and understand how health along multiple dimensions has changed over time. Our data are from the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey, 1991-2007. We show that 19 measures of health can be combined into three broad categories: a first dimension representing severe physical and social incapacity such as difficulty dressing or bathing; a second dimension representing less severe difficulty such as walking long distances or lifting heavy objects; and a third dimension representing vision and hearing impairment. These dimensions have changed at different rates over time. The first and third have declined rapidly over time, while the second has not. The improvement in health is not due to differential mortality of the sick or a new generation of more healthy people entering old age. Rather, the aging process itself is associated with less rapid deterioration in health. We speculate about the factors that may lead to this. aHardcopy version available to institutional subscribers. aSystem requirements: Adobe [Acrobat] Reader required for PDF files. aMode of access: World Wide Web. 7aI1 - Health2Journal of Economic Literature class. 7aI12 - Health Production2Journal of Economic Literature class.1 aLandrum, Mary Beth.2 aNational Bureau of Economic Research. 0aWorking Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research)vno. w17148.4 uhttp://www.nber.org/papers/w17148 uurn:doi:10.3386/w17148