Frailty prevalence was estimated across ten waves of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, 2002 to 2022. Among 6,226 to 11,218 community-dwelling adults aged 50 and over per wave, frailty rose non-significantly from 15.5% to 17.8%. Rising socio-demographic development and education offset 222.5% and 94.9% of the 2.3-point rise respectively. A calendar-year term, standing for unmeasured influences such as the pandemic, added 440.6%. Under assumed trends in age, smoking and other factors, projected 2040 prevalence was 20.5% (95% CI 19.2% to 21.9%). Care home residents were excluded, and the unexplained year term leaves the main drivers of the rise unknown.
Why it is interesting: Prevalence barely moved over 20 years, yet the number of frail people grew from 2,560,122 to 3,791,038. Gains in education and socio-demographic development offset the rise, but its main drivers stayed unmeasured.
Cite this item
BibTeX
Free sign-up. A digest of the new papers twice a week, grouped by domain.
Other drivers in Health today
-
Cancer
Where is cancer incidence rising and falling, what screening and new tests find earlier, and what treatment has done to survival.
6 this week -
Obesity, diabetes and GLP-1
Are obesity and diabetes still rising, what behavioural change and public policy do, and what difference do GLP-1s and other similar drugs make.
3 this week -
Heart and stroke
Whether deaths from heart disease and stroke have stopped falling, what is found earlier, what treatment and prevention do now, and what the deaths say.
5 this week -
Mental health
Deaths by suicide, the life expectancy gap in severe mental illness, and the physical disease that follows it: what mental illness costs in lives.
1 this week -
Dementia
Whether dementia is becoming more or less common, what is now found, what treatment and prevention do, and what the deaths say.
3 this week -
Frailty and multimorbidity
Whether the years added after 85 are healthy ones, how frailty and multiple conditions are measured, and where the data run out.
4 this week
