Trends in old age disability in developing countries

Kyriakos S. Markides                                                                                               (Session R)

Trends in Old Age Disability in Developing Countries

            Little research has been conducted on trends in disability among older people in
 developing countries.  Because many developing countries have recently reached the stage in their epidemiological transition where western countries were in the 1970’s and early 1980’s, it has been suggested that they are currently experiencing increases in old age disability accompanying rapidly aging populations as did many western countries at that time.  Support for this hypothesis was found in four of five Asian settings (Beijing, Indonesia, Philippines, and Taiwan) but not in Singapore,which is a developed country by most indicators (Ofstedal et al, 2007).  Two other studies on Taiwan (Zimmer et al, 2002; Martin et al, 2011) found increases in the prevalence of physical function difficulties in the 1990’s with the latter of these studies finding no changes since 1999, which is relatively good news given increased in survival.  China may be an exception to the general trends in that improvements in overall health and disability were found from 1992 to 2002 (Gu, 2009) but questions on the quality of the data have been raised.  Data from Latin America are virtually non-existent with the majority perspective being that the rapid aging of the population has been accompanied by increases in poor health and disability in old age (Palloni et al, 2006).  Some recent evidence suggests increases in disability in Mexico as well as among Mexican Americans in the Southwestern United States (Markides and Gerst, 2011).Evidence of increases in old age disability in developing countries is mixed and may very well reflect the absence of high quality data on trends.  Nevertheless both demographic and epidemiological forces will challenge the infrastructure of developing countries in the years to come.  Implications for more research and theory development are discussed.