Health inequalities in the older population

The burden of ill-health is carried by older people. Over 80% of all deaths in England and Wales occur among people aged 65 and over, with a further 8% among people aged 55-64. Two thirds of the population with a limiting long-term illness or disability are aged 55 and over. This means that strategies to tackle health inequalities must address health inequalities in later life. However, most health inequalities research concentrates on younger people.(1) Our project is one of two in the Health Variations Programme to focus explicitly on health and health inequalities among older people. We drew on two data sets, the Retirement and Retirement Plans Survey (2) and the Health Survey for England (HSE). The Retirement Survey sheds light on health inequalities in the 55 to 75 age group; the HSE allowed us to examine health inequalities in people aged 75 to 84. As the HSE does not include people in institutions and around 1 in 5 of those aged 85 and over live in institutions, we did not extend our analysis beyond age 84. We report on two aspects of our study. Firstly, we examine health inequalities in the two age groups and the factors which contribute to them. Secondly, we look more closely at the self-reported measures of health used in our analyses and the degree of correspondence between these subjective measures and more objective indicators of health status