Healthy People 2010: The Contribution of Good Health Behaviors to the Length and Quality of Healthy Life Years

Erin B. Reidy, National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), CDC

Despite improvements in prevalence of smoking and physical activity, increases in obesity have raised serious concerns among policymakers that the current generation will have poorer quality and length of life than previous generations. Healthy People 2010 examines the impact of changes in health behaviors through its first goal of increasing the quality and length of healthy life years, specifically years of life with good health behaviors. This paper explores the extent to which changes in HP2010 health promotion and mortality objectives contribute to trends in healthy life expectancy. analyzes are based on the 1999-2000 and 2001-2002 mortality data from the National Vital Statistics System, and 1999-2000 and 2001-2002 health behavior data from the National Health Interview Survey. Using the Sullivan method, I calculate the years of life with good health behaviors. I then use the Arriaga decomposition method to investigate the contribution of each health behavior and related cause of death to changes in health expectancy.