Improving population health in the older population: is there a trade-off between efficiency and equity?

In Sweden, the Netherlands and other modern welfare states population health has improved; life expectancy has increased, and mortality rates decreased in all ages. However, inequalities in health have persisted or even increased. In other words, not everyone in societies with modern welfare states have benefited equally from improvements in population health. This project aims to examine the distribution of several risk factors for ill-health in the older population and examine how improvements in population health potentially leads to increased health inequalities. The results from this project will show whether there is a trade-off between improving health and reducing inequalities in old age. Such information is important for future policies aim to implement population wide preventive measures for risk factors that may or may not have unintended consequences for health inequalities.

This project is funded by an international post doc grant from the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare (Forte). During the project Johan will be working at the Amsterdam University Medical Center and Vrije University in a research group that is involved in the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam (LASA) and led by Professor Martijn Huisman.