The effect of sample attrition in the EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions on the estimates of Eurostat's Healthy Life Years

Abstract

Eurostat's official Healthy Life Years (HLY) estimates are based on European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) cross-sectional data. As EU-SILC has a rotational sample design, the largest part of the samples are longitudinal, health-related attrition constituting a potential source of bias of these estimates. Bland-Altman plots assessing the agreement between pairs of HLY based on total and new rotational, representative samples demonstrated no significant, systematic attrition-related bias. However, the wide limits of agreement indicate considerable uncertainty, larger than accounted for in the confidence intervals of HLY estimates.