Morbidity, mortality and the illness-death model

TL;DR

This paper introduces a mathematical framework based on the illness-death model to analyze the compression of morbidity hypothesis, linking transition rates to health outcomes and demonstrating its application with empirical German data.

Contribution

It provides an analytically tractable approach to study the compression of morbidity using the illness-death model and related PDEs, which was not previously established.

Findings

Transition rates determine questions about compression of morbidity.

The framework is demonstrated with empirical data from Germany.

The model offers a new analytical tool for morbidity studies.

Abstract

In this article, we use the illness-death model to present a mathematical framework for studying the compression of morbidity (COM) hypothesis. It turns out that questions about COM are completely determined by the transition rates in the illness-death model and a closely related partial differential equation. By this, the COM hypothesis is analytically tractable. To demonstrate the usefulness of the mathematical framework, an example is given, which has been motivated by empirical findings from Germany.