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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Inequalities in health at older ages
— a longitudinal investigation of the onset of illness and survival effects in England | | Author(s) | Anne McMunn, James Nazroo, Elizabeth Breeze |
| Journal title | Age and Ageing, vol 38, no 2, March 2009 |
| Pages | pp 181-187 |
| Source | http://www.ageing.oxfordjournals.org |
| Keywords | Ill health ; Economic status [elderly] ; Poor elderly ; Death ; Longevity ; Longitudinal surveys ; England. |
| Annotation | Previous studies have suggested a decline in the relationship between socioeconomic circumstances and health or functioning in later life, but this may be due to survival effects. The present study examined whether wealth gradients in the incidence of illness decline with old age, and, if so, whether the decline is explained by differential mortality. The study included participants from the first two waves of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), a large national longitudinal study of the population aged 50+ in England, who reported good health, no functional impairment, or no heart disease at baseline. Wealth inequalities in onset of illness over 2 years were examined across age groups, with and without the inclusion of mortality. The study found that wealth predicted onset of functional impairment equally across age groups. For self-reported health and heart disease, wealth gradients in the onset of illness declined with age. Selective mortality contributed to this decline in the oldest age groups. Socioeconomic inequality in developing new health problems persists into old age for certain illnesses, particularly functional impairment, but not for heart disease. Selective mortality explains only some of the decline in health inequalities with age. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-090417216 A |
| Classmark | CH: F:W: F:W6: CW: BGA: 3J: 82 |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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