Long-term economic growth stimulus of human capital preservation in the elderly.

Health care is a crucial factor in US economic growth, because growing health care costs have made US corporations less competitive than their counterparts in countries where central governments assume most of those costs. In this paper we illustrate a second, possibly more powerful, effect of health care expenditures on the long term pace of US economic growth, i.e.

NIH funding trajectories and their correlations with US health dynamics from 1950 to 2004.

To determine optimal future National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding levels, the longitudinal correlation of the level of investment in NIH research with population changes in the risk of specific diseases should be analyzed. This is because NIH research is the primary source of new therapies and treatments for major chronic diseases, many of which were viewed as relatively untreatable in the 1950s. NIH research is also important in developing preventative and screening strategies to support public health interventions.

Cohort changes in active life expectancy in the U.S. elderly population: experience from the 1982-2004 National Long-Term Care Survey.

Objectives: To understand declines in chronic disability prevalence in the U.S. elderly population, we examined cohort changes in active life expectancy, a health measure relating population disability and longevity dynamics.

Labor force participation and human capital increases in an aging population and implications for U.S. research investment.

The proportion of the United States labor force >/=65 years of age is projected to increase between 2004 and 2014 by the passing of age 65 of the large post-World War II baby boom cohorts starting in 2010 and their greater longevity, income, education, and health [Toossi M (2005) Mon Labor Rev 128(11):25-44]. The aging of the U.S.