Citation

Madero-Cabib I, Azar A, Pérez-Cruz P. Int. J. Public Health 2019; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Affiliation

Departamento de Medicina Interna, Facultad de Medicina, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Diagonal Paraguay 362, 5to Piso, oficina 523, 8330077, Santiago Centro, Santiago, Chile. peperez@uc.cl.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s00038-019-01300-6

PMID

31559445

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: Based on a life course perspective, we assessed the association between three types of social advantages and disadvantages accumulated across different life stages, with the number of self-reported chronic conditions among women aged 60 + in Chile, a Latin-American country with almost no reports on this matter.

METHODS: We used a population-representative longitudinal survey (Chile's Social Protection Survey) with information about childhood conditions, economic mobility across life, educational attainment, late adulthood labor-force trajectories, and later-life health, of 2627 women aged 60+. We then used sequence and Poisson regression analyses to assess the effect of life course (dis)advantages over the number of chronic conditions in old age.

RESULTS: Growing up in a poor household and experiencing downward economic mobility (especially among those with a non-poor childhood) increases the predicted number of chronic conditions in old age. By contrast, having a continuous and formal labor-force trajectory in late adulthood and higher educational attainment is associated with fewer chronic conditions later in life.

CONCLUSIONS: Policy measures that seek to foster health prevention and health care among older women should consider how multiple exposures to social advantages/disadvantages during earlier stages of the life course could affect health in late life.

Language: en

Keywords

Advantages and disadvantages; Chile; Chronic conditions; Life course; Longitudinal methods; Old age; Women