Este artículo analiza las desigualdades sociales en la salud y la mortalidad en Argentina a nivel individual, tomando en cuenta el ingreso previsional, la región de residencia, el sexo y la edad de los adultos mayores de 65 años. Para ello se analizaron registros de pagos de beneficios de la Administración Nacional de la Seguridad Social (ANSES), que incluían la fecha de fallecimiento de los beneficiarios. Se aplicó un modelo de regresión logística de máxima verosimilitud teniendo en cuenta las variables mencionadas. En simulaciones de distintos escenarios de ingreso previsional, “duplicar el ingreso” implicó una ganancia de 0,8 años en la esperanza de vida a los 65 años, aun controlando por otro factor, como la región de residencia. Estos resultados ilustran cómo en la vejez las personas con mayores ingresos previsionales viven más tiempo en comparación con aquellas con menores ingresos.

Late-life depression is a condition that affects an ever-growing share of the population in ageing societies. While depression prevalence varies across countries for a myriad of reasons, generational factors, expressed in the shared experience of birth cohorts, may also play a part in such differentials. This paper describes the presence of age, period, and cohort (APC) effects in late-life depression prevalence trends (for adults aged 50 and above) for selected countries in Europe, using the Survey of Health and Ageing and Retirement of Europe (SHARE). We analysed six countries during the 2004–2016 period: Denmark, Sweden, and Germany, with a lower baseline prevalence, and Italy, Spain, and France, with a higher baseline prevalence. By applying a set of APC statistical models to visualise linear and nonlinear effects, we found that all countries followed a J-shaped curve when describing the transversal and longitudinal age trajectories of late-life depression. We also found a combination of nonlinear effects present in Germany, France and Sweden in males, indicating that younger male cohorts had a higher relative risk of depression. In females, we found nonlinear cohort effects, indicating that younger and older cohorts presented a higher risk of depression in Sweden and Germany and a lower risk in Spain. The presence of an increased risk for younger male cohorts may be indicative of a new trend in some countries, which may reduce the sex gap in prevalence. Future analysis should focus on the causes and mechanisms that lead to differential risks across cohorts.

The search for accurate indicators to compare the pandemic impact between countries is still a challenge. The crude death rate, case fatality rate by country and sex, standardized fatality rate, and standardized death rate were calculated using data from Argentina and Colombia countries. We show that even when frequently used indicator as deaths per million are quite similar, 512 deaths per million in Argentina and 522 deaths per million in Colombia, a significant heterogeneity can be found when the mortality data is decomposed by sex or age.

Two important sources of inequality in mortality are regional variation and individuals' socioeconomic status. While many studies have investigated the effect that each of these two factors might have had on mortality levels separately, they have rarely been studied simultaneously. Using linked data from the Spanish National Institute of Statistics, we study regional levels of life expectancy and lifespan inequality by sex and educational attainment in contemporary Spain (2014)(2015)(2016)(2017)(2018). In all regions, life expectancy was higher (and lifespan variation lower) for individuals with higher educational attainment and among women. We find a negative relationship between life expectancy and lifespan inequality across subnational regions among all sex-education groups. However, the relationship is much weaker among the highly educated. These findings suggest that spatial conditions still matter as health determinants, but even more among individuals with disadvantaged socioeconomic positions, not only in terms of lower life expectancy but also of higher lifespan variation.