The importance of regional availability of health care for old age survival - Findings from German reunification.
dc.contributor.author | Vogt, Tobias C | |
dc.contributor.author | Vaupel, James W | |
dc.coverage.spatial | England | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2017-06-01T18:18:30Z | |
dc.date.available | 2017-06-01T18:18:30Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2015 | |
dc.description.abstract | BACKGROUND: This article investigates the importance of regional health care availability for old age survival. Using German reunification as a natural experiment, we show that spatial variation in health care in East Germany considerably influenced the convergence of East German life expectancy toward West German levels. METHOD: We apply cause-deleted life tables and continuous mortality decomposition for the years 1982-2007 to show how reductions in circulatory mortality among the elderly affected the East German catch-up in life expectancy. RESULTS: Improvements in remaining life expectancy at older ages were first seen in towns with university hospitals, where state-of-the-art services became available first. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that the modernization of the health care system had a substantial effect on old-age life expectancy and helped to significantly reduce circulatory diseases as the main cause of death in East Germany. | |
dc.identifier | ||
dc.identifier | 60 | |
dc.identifier.uri | ||
dc.language | eng | |
dc.publisher | Springer Science and Business Media LLC | |
dc.relation.ispartof | Popul Health Metr | |
dc.relation.isversionof | 10.1186/s12963-015-0060-2 | |
dc.subject | Circulatory mortality | |
dc.subject | Germany | |
dc.subject | Health Care Quality | |
dc.subject | Life expectancy | |
dc.subject | Natural experiment | |
dc.title | The importance of regional availability of health care for old age survival - Findings from German reunification. | |
dc.type | Journal article | |
pubs.author-url | ||
pubs.begin-page | 26 | |
pubs.organisational-group | Center for Population Health & Aging | |
pubs.organisational-group | Duke | |
pubs.organisational-group | Duke Population Research Institute | |
pubs.organisational-group | Sanford School of Public Policy | |
pubs.publication-status | Published online | |
pubs.volume | 13 |
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