Changes in Life Expectancy and Disability-Free Life Expectancy in Successive Birth Cohorts of Older Cancer Survivors: A Longitudinal Modeling Analysis of the US Health and Retirement Study

The population of older cancer survivors in the United States is rapidly growing. However, little is currently known about how the health of older cancer survivors has changed over time and across successive birth cohorts. Using data from the US Health and Retirement Study, we parameterized a demographic microsimulation model to compare partial cohort life expectancy (LE) and disability-free LE for US men and women without cancer and with prevalent and incident cancer diagnoses for 4 successive 10-year birth cohorts, born 1918–1927 to 1948–1957. Disability was defined as being disabled in ≥1 activity of daily living. These cohorts had midpoint ages of 55–64, 65–74, and 75–84 years during the periods 1998–2008 (the “early” period) and 2008–2018 (the “later” period). Across all cohorts and periods, those with incident cancer had the lowest LE, followed by those with prevalent cancer and cancer-free individuals. We observed declines in partial LE and an expansion of life spent disabled among more recent birth cohorts of prevalent-cancer survivors. Our findings suggest that advances in treatments that prolong life for individual cancer patients may have led to population-level declines in conditional LE and disability-free LE across successive cohorts of older cancer survivors.