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The United States is on the brink of a longevity revolution. By 2030,
the number of older Americans will have more than doubled to 70 million,
or one in every five Americans. The growing number and proportion of older
adults places increasing demands on the public health system and on
medical and social services.
Chronic diseases exact a particularly heavy health and economic burden
on older adults due to associated long-term illness, diminished quality of
life, and greatly increased health care costs. Although the risk of
disease and disability clearly increases with advancing age, poor health
is not an inevitable consequence of aging.
Much of the illness, disability, and death associated with chronic
disease is avoidable through known prevention measures. Key measures
include practicing a healthy lifestyle (e.g., regular physical activity,
healthy eating, and avoiding tobacco use) and the use of early detection
practices (e.g., screening for breast, cervical, and colorectal cancers,
diabetes and its complications, and depression).
Critical knowledge gaps exist for responding to the health needs of
older adults. For chronic diseases and conditions such as Alzheimer's
disease, arthritis, depression, psychiatric disorders, osteoporosis,
Parkinson's disease, and urinary incontinence, much remains to be learned
about their distribution in the population, associated risk factors, and
effective measures to prevent or delay their onset.
* Links to non-federal
organizations are provided solely as a service to our users. Links do not
constitute an endorsement of any organization by CDC or the federal
government, and none should be inferred. The CDC is not responsible for
the content of the individual organization Web pages found at this link.
One or more documents on this Web page is available in Portable Document Format
(PDF). You will need Acrobat
Reader (a free application) to view and print these documents.
Page last reviewed: June 20, 2007
Page last modified: June 17, 2008
Content source: Division of Adult
and Community Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and
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