Healthy ageing: Tackling the burden of disease and disability in an ageing population

To prepare future societies to cope with the expected increase in the burden of disease, it is essential to quantify the current burden of disease and disability and to know how these may develop in the future. In addition, for developing interventions that may effectively reduce the burden of disability and contribute to a compression of morbidity, it is essential to know which factors, such as diseases and life style factors, contribute most to the current burden of disability. The research questions addressed in this thesis were:

1. What is the current burden of disease and disability?
2. Which determinants explain the current burden of disability?