Focus on disability-free life expectancy: implications for health-related quality of life.

Background: Since the end of the industrial revolution, advances in public health and clinical medicine have contributed to dramatic decreases in infant and childhood mortality, improvements in health-related quality of life (HRQoL), increases in overall life expectancy (LE), and rectangularization of survival curves.

Objectives: In this article, we focus on disability that has occurred with the overall lengthening of LE in many populations and the implications this has for decreased HRQoL.

Methods: We utilize the concept of rectangularization of population survival to depict the rising prevalence of disability associated with increased LE, especially among racial and ethnic minorities and people of low socioeconomic status (SES) and relate this to HRQoL.