Effects of population aging on quality of life and disease burden: a population-based study

As population aging intensifies, it becomes increasingly important to elucidate the casual relationship between aging and changes in population health. Therefore, our study proposed to develop a systematic attribution framework to comprehensively evaluate the health impacts of population aging.

We used health-adjusted life expectancy (HALE) to measure quality of life and disability-adjusted life years (DALY) to quantify the burden of disease for the population of Guangzhou. The HALE and DALY projections were generated using both the Bayesian age-period-cohort models and the population prediction models. Changes in HALE and DALY between 2010-2020 and 2020-2030 were decomposed to isolate the effects of population aging. Three scenarios were analyzed to examine the relative relationship between disease burden and population aging. In Scenarios 1 and 2, the disease burden rates in 2030 were assumed to either remain at 2020 levels or follow historical trends. In Scenario 3, it was assumed that the absolute numbers of years of life lost (YLL) and years lived with disability (YLD) in 2030 would remain unchanged from the 2020 levels.