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Boomer Health Debated March 19, 2007 Studying
data from the U.S. Health and Retirement Study, she and her colleagues
found that people in their early to mid-50s were reporting more health
problems than people that age had described previously. Significantly,
fewer such middle-aged people in 2004 than in 1992 rated their health
highly. More of them rated pain as a regular problem. And a higher
percentage had trouble climbing stairs or walking a few blocks. The
findings for the 51-56 age group ran counter to assumptions about the
nation's health, especially that disability among the elderly was
declining. What's
not clear in the wake of the report is whether there's an actual health
decline among boomers born between 1948 and 1953 or just a decline in
perceptions. The federal data are not correlated with any actual health
evaluations. "Boomers
indicate they have relatively more difficulty with a range of everyday
physical tasks, but they also report having more pain, more chronic
conditions, more drinking and psychiatric problems, than their ... earlier
counterparts," said Dr. Soldo's study, which was done for the
National Bureau of Economic Research. If
any increased physical hardships among baby boomers prove long-lasting, it
could be crippling for the future of Medicare costs, government financing
of nursing home care, the nation's workforce needs and the care giving
burdens placed on their children. No
one's saying there's evidence yet of any such doomsday scenario, but
findings like Soldo's intrude upon consistently optimistic news about
reductions in heart disease, better maintenance of chronic conditions and
longer life expectancy. "I
spent a good bit of time trying to prove to myself that these (negative
findings) were incorrect," said Soldo, the 58-year-old director of
Penn's Of
5,000 people, age 51-56, answering the national health and retirement
survey in 2004, exactly half the age group rated their health as either
"excellent" or "very good." In 1992, 57 percent of
people the same age rated their health that way. In 1998, 53 percent did
so. The survey is done every six years. Since
publication two weeks ago of Soldo's report, called "Cross-Cohort
Differences in Health on the Verge of Retirement," people who study
health issues have suggested a number of theories to explain why those new
to the age group might report more physical problems than their
predecessors: -
The nation's increased obesity rates, which affect various health issues,
are just now showing up as a factor in such data. -
Baby boomers may be less stoic than their predecessors, with higher
standards for their health and more likelihood of complaining about
maladies. -
Improvements in medical diagnoses and more widespread use of medications
make people more aware of their own health issues and less likely to
pronounce themselves in top shape. -Increased
stress is burdening the newer members of the age group, rendering them
less likely to report vigorous health overall. Dr.
Richard Suzman, director of the National Institute on Aging Behavioral and
Social Research Program, said most news about today's older adults has
bred optimism that the 78 million baby boomers approaching old age won't
overwhelm the health care system. He wants to see more research before
making any assumption that such a huge population is either worse now, or
will be worse in the future, than projected. "If
it's true, it's pretty important," he said. He
and others speculated that if there's actual health decline, obesity is a
top suspect. Carrying excess weight contributes to the likelihood of
diabetes and other disease, as well as to creating lethargy that can
affect how people rate their health. There
is a nightmare scenario that some health analysts and economists have
feared for years: the possibility that people who live longer because of
medical advances will spend too many of those twilight years sick,
bankrupting the system for everyone else. One
of the nation's leading analysts of aging health trends, The
prevalence of chronic disability for people over age 65 stood at 19
percent in 2004-05, compared to 26.5 percent in 1982, and the improvement
came at a higher rate in recent years than a decade or two ago, according
to Manton's analysis. Because that data is connected to Medicare
enrollees' medical records as well as their responses in interviews,
Manton sees it as a more reliable indicator of how people are doing than
self-reporting. He
also said it's possible that the negative effects of obesity are
exaggerated, because Americans have been getting bigger in body size as a
long-term trend at the same time their life expectancy and other
indicators have improved. Also, adding pounds is one common side effect of
stopping smoking, which, he said, is "still a net (health)
gain." "If
there is a real increase in health problems, that's negative, but we have
to be careful about it just being that medical care is better at detecting
these things," Manton said. "I would have to have another five
to 10 years of data to feel comfortable saying things are falling apart
for people in the
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