Cargando…

Educational Inequalities in Life and Healthy Life Expectancies among the 50-Plus in Spain

This study computes educational inequalities in life expectancy (LE), healthy life expectancy (HLE), and unhealthy life expectancy (ULE) by gender and education level in Spain in 2012. Death registrations and vital status by level of education were obtained from Spain’s National Institute of Statist...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Solé-Auró, Aïda, Martín, Unai, Domínguez Rodríguez, Antía
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7277913/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32438706
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17103558
_version_ 1783543229329702912
author Solé-Auró, Aïda
Martín, Unai
Domínguez Rodríguez, Antía
author_facet Solé-Auró, Aïda
Martín, Unai
Domínguez Rodríguez, Antía
author_sort Solé-Auró, Aïda
collection PubMed
description This study computes educational inequalities in life expectancy (LE), healthy life expectancy (HLE), and unhealthy life expectancy (ULE) by gender and education level in Spain in 2012. Death registrations and vital status by level of education were obtained from Spain’s National Institute of Statistics. Health prevalences were estimated from the National Health Survey for Spain. We used Sullivan’s method to compute HLE, ULE, and the proportion of time lived with health problems. Our results reveal that Spanish women live longer than men in all education groups, but a higher proportion of women report poor health. We detect substantial differences in unhealthy life by gender and education, with higher effect for women and for those with low levels of education. Poor self-perceived health shows the largest educational gradient; chronic diseases present the lowest. This is the first work that provides evidence on health inequalities by education level in Spain. Our findings seem to be in line with reports of the smaller social inequalities experienced in Southern Europe and highlight the importance of education level on extending the proportion of years spent in good health in a Mediterranean country.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-7277913
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2020
publisher MDPI
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-72779132020-06-12 Educational Inequalities in Life and Healthy Life Expectancies among the 50-Plus in Spain Solé-Auró, Aïda Martín, Unai Domínguez Rodríguez, Antía Int J Environ Res Public Health Article This study computes educational inequalities in life expectancy (LE), healthy life expectancy (HLE), and unhealthy life expectancy (ULE) by gender and education level in Spain in 2012. Death registrations and vital status by level of education were obtained from Spain’s National Institute of Statistics. Health prevalences were estimated from the National Health Survey for Spain. We used Sullivan’s method to compute HLE, ULE, and the proportion of time lived with health problems. Our results reveal that Spanish women live longer than men in all education groups, but a higher proportion of women report poor health. We detect substantial differences in unhealthy life by gender and education, with higher effect for women and for those with low levels of education. Poor self-perceived health shows the largest educational gradient; chronic diseases present the lowest. This is the first work that provides evidence on health inequalities by education level in Spain. Our findings seem to be in line with reports of the smaller social inequalities experienced in Southern Europe and highlight the importance of education level on extending the proportion of years spent in good health in a Mediterranean country. MDPI 2020-05-19 2020-05 /pmc/articles/PMC7277913/ /pubmed/32438706 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17103558 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Solé-Auró, Aïda
Martín, Unai
Domínguez Rodríguez, Antía
Educational Inequalities in Life and Healthy Life Expectancies among the 50-Plus in Spain
title Educational Inequalities in Life and Healthy Life Expectancies among the 50-Plus in Spain
title_full Educational Inequalities in Life and Healthy Life Expectancies among the 50-Plus in Spain
title_fullStr Educational Inequalities in Life and Healthy Life Expectancies among the 50-Plus in Spain
title_full_unstemmed Educational Inequalities in Life and Healthy Life Expectancies among the 50-Plus in Spain
title_short Educational Inequalities in Life and Healthy Life Expectancies among the 50-Plus in Spain
title_sort educational inequalities in life and healthy life expectancies among the 50-plus in spain
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7277913/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32438706
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17103558
work_keys_str_mv AT soleauroaida educationalinequalitiesinlifeandhealthylifeexpectanciesamongthe50plusinspain
AT martinunai educationalinequalitiesinlifeandhealthylifeexpectanciesamongthe50plusinspain
AT dominguezrodriguezantia educationalinequalitiesinlifeandhealthylifeexpectanciesamongthe50plusinspain