Compression of morbidity
Ageing and Chronic Care
Definition. Compression of morbidity is the hypothesis that the onset of chronic illness and disability can be postponed more than the age of death, so that the period of life lived in poor health shrinks.
Explanation
Fries proposed the hypothesis in 1980 (Fries, 1980). Studies of supercentenarians suggest that health span can approximate life span at the extreme limit of life (Andersen et al., 2012).
Competing views include expansion of morbidity and dynamic equilibrium, which predict different consequences for health and long-term care demand.
Related concepts
Multimorbidity Frailty Long-term care Disability-adjusted life year (DALY)
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References
Andersen, S. L., Sebastiani, P., Dworkis, D. A., Feldman, L., & Perls, T. T. (2012). Health span approximates life span among many supercentenarians: Compression of morbidity at the approximate limit of life span. The Journals of Gerontology: Series A, 67 (4), 395–405. https://doi.org/10.1093/gerona/glr223
Fries, J. F. (1980). Aging, natural death, and the compression of morbidity. New England Journal of Medicine, 303(3), 130–135. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJM198007173030304
Cite this entry: Kurutkan, M. N. (2026). Compression of morbidity. In The Health Topics glossary. https://healthtopic.org/glossary/compression-of-morbidity/
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