Socioeconomic differences in the use of ill-defined causes of death in 16 European countries.
BMC Public Health
; 14: 1295, 2014 Dec 17.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-25518912
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
Cause-of-death data linked to information on socioeconomic position form one of the most important sources of information about health inequalities in many countries. The proportion of deaths from ill-defined conditions is one of the indicators of the quality of cause-of-death data. We investigated educational differences in the use of ill-defined causes of death in official mortality statistics.METHODS:
Using age-standardized mortality rates from 16 European countries, we calculated the proportion of all deaths in each educational group that were classified as due to "Symptoms, signs and ill-defined conditions". We tested if this proportion differed across educational groups using Chi-square tests.RESULTS:
The proportion of ill-defined causes of death was lower than 6.5% among men and 4.5% among women in all European countries, without any clear geographical pattern. This proportion statistically significantly differed by educational groups in several countries with in most cases a higher proportion among less than secondary educated people compared with tertiary educated people.CONCLUSIONS:
We found evidence for educational differences in the distribution of ill-defined causes of death. However, the differences between educational groups were small suggesting that socioeconomic inequalities in cause-specific mortality in Europe are not likely to be biased.
Texto completo:
1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Mortalidade
/
Causas de Morte
/
Escolaridade
/
Disparidades nos Níveis de Saúde
Tipo de estudo:
Etiology_studies
/
Prognostic_studies
Limite:
Adult
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
País/Região como assunto:
Europa
Idioma:
En
Revista:
BMC Public Health
Assunto da revista:
SAUDE PUBLICA
Ano de publicação:
2014
Tipo de documento:
Article
País de afiliação:
Holanda