Socioeconomic inequality in health in older adults in Brazil

Abstract

Objective: This study analyzed socioeconomic inequality in self-rated health for older adults (aged fifty or over) in Brazil. Methods: Data from the 2015-2016 Brazilian Longitudinal Study of Aging (ELSI-Brazil). Socioeconomic inequality in self-rated health was measured using the concentration index, which was decomposed to analyze the contribution of different factors. Results: This study revealed that 11.5% of the older adults interviewed reported their health as poor and very poor. For the complete sample, the estimated concentration index, −0.2434, indicated that there is a concentration of poor and very poor self-rated health among older and poorer adults. Income, education and having a private health insurance plan are the factors that contributed most to the observed inequality. Discussion: The decomposition showed that there are avoidable inequalities in relation to socioeconomic status for older adults in Brazil. These factors can guide the formulation of social and health policies aimed at reducing health inequalities.

Keywords

• Socioeconomic inequalities
• Self-rated health
• Concentration index
• Older adults