Life expectancy & quality of life

Enhancement of well-being among community members is a key goal of clinical and translational research. Increases in life expectancy and quality of life are frequently used to assess community health.

Advice from authors on searching for information:

Without specific analyses, it is challenging to attribute changes in quality of life or life expectancy of a population to the dissemination and implementation of a specific clinical and translational research project. Researchers may want to consult with domain-specific experts.

Organizations, repositories, websites, and other sources where you can find more information:

Local

• Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. This MDHSS site provides information on health assessment and intervention planning. Data on life expectancy for Missouri’s 115 counties as well as other data sets are also available for surveillance purposes.

General

• CDC- National Center for Health Statistics. This CDC site provides life expectancy data and other data sets for the United States.
• CDC’s Health-Related Quality of Life. This CDC site provides information about the health-related quality of life (HRQOL) questionnaire and links to data.
• RAND Health Surveys. RAND Health provides several quality of life surveys available without charge.
• WHOQOL-BREF. The WHOQOL-BREF is a quality of life scale developed through the World Health Organization.

Challenges you may encounter while searching for information:

Access to self-reported researcher or administrative/in-house data may be required to locate documentation. The relevance of case studies and indicators may be affected by whether the work is global, national, state, or local.

Articles, books, and other publications in translational science using the benefit:

• Chetty R, Cutler D, Stepner M. Effects of local health interventions on inequality in life expectancy: new publicly available data. Am J Public Health. 2016 Dec 106(12): 2154-2155.
• Ovseiko PV, Oancea A, Buchan AM. Assessing research impact in academic clinical medicine: a study using Research Excellence Framework pilot impact indicators. BMC Health Serv Res. 2012 Dec 23;12:478. doi: 10.1186/1472-6963-12-478.
• Wooding S, Hanney SR, Pollitt A, et al. Understanding factors associated with the translation of cardiovascular research: a multinational case study approach. Implement Sci. 2014 Apr 21;9(1):47. doi: 10.1186/1748-5908-9-47.