OBJECTIVEFocus on the Active Life Expectancy (ALE) of elderly in Beijing and the transition in recent years.

METHODSA representative sample of 3257 elderly people who lived in the urban, suburban and rural communities in Beijing that had been followed up for 12 years. Their health and survival status had been surveyed every 2-3 years. Activity Daily Living scale (ADL), recommended by WHO was used to evaluate the physical function capability of the elderly. IMaCH 0.8 was used to estimate life expectancy (LE) and active life expectancy (ALE) for both periods while age, sex and rural/urban residence areas were adjusted.

RESULTSLongitudinally, data showed that the main characters remained unchange throughout the two periods including 1) LE, ALE, ALE/LE of elderly living in urban area were higher than those living in rural area; 2) LE seemed longer in women than men, but ALE/LE was less in women. The transition between two period showed that 1) LE increased modestly in all groups but less prominent in urban residents and in females; 2) ALE was not significantly changed in the rural elderly but declined markedly in women living in the urban area; 3) ALE/LE of the elderly declined in all groups, especially in urban and oldest old groups.

CONCLUSIONIn Beijing, elderly AL-E did not increase in parallel with the increase of LE while ALE/LE of the elderly declined significantly in recent years. In order to improve quality of life of the elderly and to increase their ALE, emphasis should be given to prevention of cardiovascular, cerebrovascular and other chronic diseases while reducing the occurrence of physical disability and strengthening on rehabilitation would be the basic health care measures.