Mortality model based on delays in progression of chronic diseases: alternative to cause elimination model.

For the analysis of the impact of major chronic diseases on a population, a life table model is proposed in which the age at death due to specific cause (chronic disease) is postponed. Even though many of the major causes of death related to intrinsic aging processes are impossible to eliminate, these causes might be significantly delayed or retarded. To illustrate the use of this model, the effects of a delay of 5, 10, and 15 years in deaths due to three chronic degenerative diseases (cancer, ischemic heart disease, and stroke) are calculated for specific race-sex components of the U.S. population in 1969. These calculations show that even moderate delays in the progression of major chronic diseases will yield a sizable portion of the total gain in longevity that would be available if the diseases were totally eliminated. Thus, they demonstrate that a life table model based on cause delay provides a more biomedically plausible representation of the health impact of a chronic disease on a population than does the cause elimination life table model. Additionally, the cause-delay model provides a mechanism for incorporating the likely effects of medical innovation on survival.