SOCIOECONOMIC AND DEMOGRAPHIC DIFFERENTIALS IN THE HEALTHY LIFE EXPECTATION OF ELDERLY PEOPLE TO BRAZIL AND GREAT REGIONS IN 2013
Population Aging.; Longevity; Healthy Life Expectancy; Functional Incapacity; Elderly
The Brazilian population has undergone a rapid change in its age structure, as a consequence of changes in its demographic dynamics. Consequently, there is a reduction in the proportion of children and young people, a rapid aging process and increases in both life expectancy at birth and longevity of the population. With survival gains in almost all ages, especially from the age of 60, it is important to analyze the health conditions of this surviving and increasingly long-lived population. However, since Brazil is a country of regional contrasts, it is important to analyze the impacts of population aging and longevity gains in the different socioeconomic and demographic contexts in different regions of Brazil. This study estimated and analyzed an indicator that jointly incorporates changes in the level of mortality and health conditions of the elderly population, by socioeconomic and demographic characteristics among the major regions of Brazil in 2013. Mortality data were extracted from the official tables of published by the IBGE in 2013. The health status of the population was obtained based on the information on activities of daily living collected in the National Health Survey in 2013. Thus, the regional, socioeconomic and demographic differentials were analyzed in the disability-free life expectancy of the Elderly in Brazil in 2013. As main results it was observed that women live longer than men, but are disadvantaged in terms of DFLE. The subgroup of the less educated, who live in the North and Northeast of Brazil, is the one that presents the biggest disadvantage in terms of DFLE, besides being below the national average. However, differences by race and education are not significant in most regions and deserve attention in their analyzes. Checking the differentials in DFLE is important, since the results can serve as a subsidy for the planning of public policies aimed at caring for the elderly, setting priorities for a healthy aging and minimizing future demands in the health area, with a greater attention to those which are disadvantaged.