HEALTH INEQUALITIES IN THE ELDERLY AND VULNERABLE POPULATION: 1960-2011

This research describes and analyses the trend in life expectancy evolution in various European Union countries, from the early 1960s until today. It is during this period that gender-based differences begin reaching significant convergence between male and female life expectancy rates with the greatest convergence occurring in 2011, even though women still reach higher average life expectancy.
In order to interpret this inequality trend regarding European life expectancy, a conceptual framework of the epidemiological transition theory has been used and applied at a micro level in Spain. The Instituto Nacional de Estadística and the Institut d’Estadistica de Catalunya provide death statistics by cause as well as life tables from which our data has been extracted. The epidemiological study has been carried out by grouping large causes of deaths while the methodology used is indirect standardisation, which allows comparing the 1960-2011 province mortality cause pattern to that of Spain for the same period.
This country has defined and characterized the final stages of the epidemiological transition. The increasing life expectancy rate and this impact on health disparities have an effect on the vulnerability of survival of the current elderly population, where women continue to break the epidemiological patterns.