In the 'News' section you will find the latest scientific findings from the anti-ageing field. Keep your finger on the pulse with MoleQlar. The month of March offers an interesting study from the field of health economics. What do plans that are not adhered to do to longevity?
Time-inconsistent health behaviour and its impact on ageing and longevity
People like to think about their future, especially when it comes to their own health. Driven by the desire to live a long life, they make plans to increase investments in health and limit unhealthy behaviours. So we make considerations and set goals to stay healthy for as long as possible. Depending on how pronounced one's own health consciousness is, the resolutions turn out to be more or less ambitious. Ultimately, however, resolutions are only worthwhile if the motivation is translated into actual action. The problem here is often the discrepancy between short-term costs and long-term benefits. The reward is simply too far in the future. Cost is not a purely financial term, but can also mean time and effort.
It is the case that individuals can "slow down ageing and postpone death by investing in health and by reducing unhealthy consumption [...]", write Holger Strulik and Katharina Werner from the University of Göttingen in a recent study. In it, the authors took up the above-mentioned human tendency towards inconsistency and examined its effects on endogenous ageing and longevity. They were able to show that individuals constantly revise their original plans to invest more in their health or to stop smoking, for example. This specifically involves a lack of stamina. As a result, health deficits add up faster and people die earlier than they had actually planned.
The model
Based on various assumptions, Strulik and Werner calibrated a model to estimate the impact of this time-inconsistent health behaviour. The calculation was based on US data for an average 20-year-old American person in 2010. The model is not a crystal ball, but a gerontologically sound life-cycle model based on scientific assumptions. The researchers then compared the potential lifespan of people who adhered to health plans with the actual realised lifespan after plan changes. This allowed a quantitative assessment of the costs of plan deviations in terms of longevity.
Results
The approach resulted in a calculated loss of about five years of life between the best possible and actual life expectancy. More graphically, if the 20-year-old US person had adhered to the original health plans, then according to the model he or she would have lived five years longer. Strulik and Werner also showed that the calculated result is relatively independent of income.
However, it is possible to achieve the originally desired longevity with general pricing policies. Getting people to behave in a way that achieves the originally desired health goals requires a large subsidy for health care and a large increase in the price of unhealthy goods (e.g.: cigarettes). As a result, the original lifetime goals are achieved with a lifetime behaviour that deviates greatly from the originally planned behaviour. If the person in and of itself wanted to independently abstain from harmful goods and buy more healthy products, these framework conditions are now imposed from the outside and thus practically "left with no choice". Pricing policy can thus lead the individual to behave more healthily in order to actually achieve maximum longevity - regardless of mental condition.
The study was published in March 2021 in the Journal of Health Economics.
Source:
Strulik, H., & Werner, K. (2021). Time-inconsistent health behavior and its impact on aging and longevity. Journal of Health Economics, 76, 102440. link
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