Individual and contextual determinants of social inequality on mortality in southern Europe

Diego Ramiro-Fariñas, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Francisco Viciana, Instituto de Estadistica de Andalucia
Víctor Montañes Cobo, Instituto de Estadística de Andalucía
Juan Merlo, Lund University

Studies on social inequality and mortality have a long tradition in demography and epidemiology. However, in Spain, as well as in the rest of Southern Europe, the statistical sources available don’t allow going further from ecological territorial analysis. Although this kind of analysis allows us to study the association between social characteristics and mortality, it does not allow measuring the real impact of these determinants on mortality. Recent developments on the integration and linkage of individual statistical registers, as the Longitudinal Population Database of Andalusia Region, which follows up 9 million individual trajectories, will allow a precise quantification and decomposition of the effect of social determinants on mortality. Some preliminary results show that life expectancy differentials for the population over 40 years old, by individual characteristics, such as educational level attained, are very significative. Those characteristics associated to household of residence, as well as housing ownership and other non measured characteristics had also an important impact. However, despite of an important residential segregation, characteristics regarding the area of residence had a week and marginal impact once discounted the effects of individual and familial characteristics.