Americans Live Longer Than Ever Before: More Years of Healthy Life

Who says that Americans are unhealthy? It turns out that Americans are living longer than ever before. Researchers have found that the average 25-year-old American today can look forward to 2.4 more years of a healthy life in comparison to those who lived 20 years ago.

While researchers knew that medical advances, better treatments and new drugs have helped extend the lives of Americans, they weren't sure whether this increase added healthy and active years to life expectancy. In order to find that out, the researchers synthesized data from multiple government-sponsored health surveys conducted over the last 21 years. This allowed them to measure how the quality-adjusted life expectancy (QALE) of all Americans has changed over time.

"QALE tells us more than how long a person can expect to live," said Allison Rosen, one of the researchers, in a news release. "It tells us what the relative quality of those added years are in terms of physical, emotional and mental well-being. Though many studies have measured this in different ways, this is really the first time we've been able to capture this type of information across the whole U.S. population over an extended period."

It turns out that Americans aren't only living longer; they're also reporting fewer symptoms of disease, have more energy and show fewer impairment in everyday tasks, such as walking, than a generation ago. In fact, a 65-year-old person will gain 1.7 quality years, which is a 14 percent increase from just a generation ago. These findings can mostly be blamed on improvements in health care.

"Today, it is far less likely that a patient recovering from a heart attack will become institutionalized or need around-the-clock care the way they once might have," said Rosen.

That's not to say that they didn't find health problems among Americans. It turns out that older Americans are more likely to see quality of life declines related to degenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's and dementia. Younger Americans, in contrast, seem to be experiencing problems related to a sedentary lifestyle.

Even so, it seems that Americans are becoming healthier over time. The findings could also help improve this trend by indicating where policies should focus when it comes to healthcare. Having a consistent measure in population health could also represent a major advance in our ability to measure the impact of health care.

The findings are published in the American Journal of Public Health.