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The European Journal of Health Economics

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01-11-2015 | Original Paper

Did the health of the Dutch population improve between 2001 and 2008? Investigating age- and gender-specific trends in quality of life

Authors: Maria Gheorghe, Werner B. F. Brouwer, Pieter H. M. van Baal

Published in: The European Journal of Health Economics | Issue 8/2015

Abstract

Although many countries’ populations have experienced increasing life expectancy in recent decades, quality of life (QoL) trends in the general population have yet to be investigated. This paper investigates whether QoL changed for the general Dutch population over the period 2001–2008. A beta regression model was employed to address specific features of the QoL distribution (i.e., boundedness, skewness, and heteroskedasticity), as well non-linear age and time trends. Quality-adjusted life expectancy (QALE) was calculated by combining model estimates of mean QoL with mortality rates provided by Statistics Netherlands. Changes in QALE were decomposed into those changes caused by QoL changes and those caused by mortality-rate changes. The results revealed a significant increase in QoL over 2001–2008 for both genders and most ages. For example, QALE for a man/woman aged 20 was found to have increased by 2.3/1.9 healthy years, of which 0.6/0.8 was due to QoL improvements.

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In gamlss a generalized Akaike information criterion (GAIC) is implemented \({\text{GAIC}} = {\text{GD}} + \lambda \times df\), where \(\lambda\) is the penalty, \({\text{GD}}\) is the global fitted deviance \({\text{GD}} = - 2L\) with \(L\) is the fitted log likelihood function. The user can chose various penalties, however the most widely used ones are \(\lambda = 2\) and \(\lambda = \log (n).\) Whereas for \(\lambda = 2\), Akaike criterion is derived, for \(\lambda = \log (n)\) with \(n\) being the sample size, the Schwarz Bayesian criterion (SBC) is obtained. In this study, we chose to use AIC over SBC because the AIC splines were smoother and gave a more convincing visual fit to the data.

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Title: Did the health of the Dutch population improve between 2001 and 2008? Investigating age- and gender-specific trends in quality of life
Authors: Maria Gheorghe
Werner B. F. Brouwer
Pieter H. M. van Baal
Publication date: 01-11-2015
Publisher: Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Published in: The European Journal of Health Economics / Issue 8/2015
Print ISSN: 1618-7598
Electronic ISSN: 1618-7601
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10198-014-0630-4

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Did the health of the Dutch population improve between 2001 and 2008? Investigating age- and gender-specific trends in quality of life

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