Health expectancy measures incorporating mortality and morbidity may better determine the future needs of older people than current methods solely using mortality rates. Life expectancy with and without visual disability was calculated from two longitudinal studies of the elderly. Various scenarios of changing input transition rates were then explored. Women had a greater probability of transition to disability. Thus, increases in incidence had a larger impact for women than for men on resulting life-years with visual disability, reducing the proportion of remaining disability-free life by 2.1%. When mortality continued to decrease but incidence increased and recovery decreased, there was an increase in life expectancy, although for women this was offset by an even greater increase in years spent with visual disability. Health expectancy calculated from longitudinal data may be useful in exploring potential future variations in incidence, treatment, and mortality rates and their effect on population health.
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