Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London, London, UK.
North-East Centre, Indian Statistical Institute, Tezpur, India.
Eur J Public Health. 2019 Apr 1;29(2):267-272. doi: 10.1093/eurpub/cky215.
There are striking socioeconomic differences in life expectancy, but less is known about inequalities in healthy life expectancy and disease-free life expectancy. We estimated socioeconomic differences in health expectancies in four studies in England, Finland, France and Sweden.
We estimated socioeconomic differences in health expectancies using data drawn from repeated waves of the four cohorts for two indicators: (i) self-rated health and (ii) chronic diseases (cardiovascular, cancer, respiratory and diabetes). Socioeconomic position was measured by occupational position. Multistate life table models were used to estimate healthy and chronic disease-free life expectancy from ages 50 to 75.
In all cohorts, we found inequalities in healthy life expectancy according to socioeconomic position. In England, both women and men in the higher positions could expect 82-83% of their life between ages 50 and 75 to be in good health compared to 68% for those in lower positions. The figures were 75% compared to 47-50% for Finland; 85-87% compared to 77-79% for France and 80-83% compared to 72-75% for Sweden. Those in higher occupational positions could expect more years in good health (2.1-6.8 years) and without chronic diseases (0.5-2.3 years) from ages 50 to 75.
There are inequalities in healthy life expectancy between ages 50 and 75 according to occupational position. These results suggest that reducing socioeconomic inequalities would make an important contribution to extending healthy life expectancy and disease-free life expectancy.
在预期寿命方面存在显著的社会经济差异,但对于健康预期寿命和无疾病预期寿命的不平等现象了解较少。我们在英格兰、芬兰、法国和瑞典的四项研究中估计了健康预期寿命的社会经济差异。
我们使用四个队列的重复波次的数据来估计健康预期寿命的社会经济差异,有两个指标:(i)自我评估的健康状况和(ii)慢性疾病(心血管疾病、癌症、呼吸系统疾病和糖尿病)。社会经济地位通过职业地位来衡量。多状态生命表模型用于从 50 岁到 75 岁估计健康和无慢性疾病的预期寿命。
在所有队列中,我们发现根据社会经济地位存在健康预期寿命的不平等现象。在英格兰,处于较高职业地位的男性和女性在 50 岁到 75 岁之间预期有 82-83%的时间处于良好的健康状态,而处于较低职业地位的人则为 68%。芬兰的数据分别为 75%和 47-50%;法国的数据分别为 85-87%和 77-79%;瑞典的数据分别为 80-83%和 72-75%。处于较高职业地位的人可以预期从 50 岁到 75 岁之间有更多的健康年数(2.1-6.8 年)和无慢性疾病年数(0.5-2.3 年)。
根据职业地位,50 岁到 75 岁之间存在健康预期寿命的不平等现象。这些结果表明,减少社会经济不平等将对延长健康预期寿命和无疾病预期寿命做出重要贡献。