International projections of age specific healthcare consumption: 2015 –2060

Publication date: Available online 21 April 2017 Source:The Journal of the Economics of Ageing Author(s): Carl N. Mason, Timothy Miller We construct a demographically informed model of age specific healthcare consumption for 36 countries of widely varying income and wealth, in the National Transfer Accounts project. We project healthcare consumption to 2060 using a modified Lee-Carter technique. In our modification, GDP per capita plays the role of time in explaining changes in the age-pattern of health consumption as countries become wealthier. We find that rising wealth mainly affects health consumption at older-ages. The main advantage of the model is its simplicity and its reduced reliance on expert judgment about future trends. Unlike many health projections, we find that population aging is an important driver of future health consumption. Our model predicts rapid increases in healthcare consumption during the rapid phase of population aging but more modest increases thereafter once the great transformation to aged societies is complete.
Source: The Journal of the Economics of Ageing - Category: Health Management Source Type: research