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Portugal Women Health Information
– Reported, February 04, 2012
Portuguese life expectancy (LE) at age 65 has increased by 1.3 years for women and 1.4 years for men over the 1995-2005 period: LE for both sexes between 1995-2001 was below the EU15 average and remained below the EU25 average in 2005.
Over the 1995-2001 period, health expectancy based on activity limitation (HLY) at age 65 from the ECHP data remained almost stable. The proportion of HLY (or years without self-reported limitations due to health condition or disability), within the total expected years, decreased for both sexes, being close to 46% for women and 52% for men in 2001. Between 1996 and 2001 HLY in Portugal was below the EU15 average.
The new HLY series, initiated in 2005 with the SILC data, shows a lower value for Portugal than previously and below the EU average being 4.8 years and 2.6 years lower than the EU25 average (and below the EU15 average) for women and men respectively. Women and men at age 65 can expect to spend 26% and 39% of their life without self-reported long-term activity limitations respectively. Compared to earlier trends, the SILC question may result in people reporting limitations of different severity than previously and Portuguese women and men may be more likely to report less severe problems than before and than the EU25 as a whole.
In 2005, LE at age 65 in Portugal was 19.4 years for women and 16.1 years for men.
Based on the SILC 2005, at age 65, women spent 26% (5.1 years) of their remaining life without activity limitation (corresponding to Healthy Life Years (HLY)), 33% (6.4 years) with moderate activity limitation and 41% (7.9 years) with severe activity limitation.*
Men of the same age spent 39% (6.2 years) of remaining life without activity limitation compared to 30% (4.8 years) with moderate activity limitation and 31% (5.1 years) with severe activity limitation.*
Although total years lived by men were less than those for women, for all the health expectancies the years of life spent in positive health were greater for men than women.
Compared to men, women spent a larger proportion of their life in ill health and these years of ill health were more likely to be years with severe health problems.
Diseases like hypertension and diabetes are more prevalent among women. Women also report a worse health condition than men, a higher number of disability days, and are more likely to suffer from longstanding illness. The evolution of some health determinants has also been detrimental for womenís health: men have been reducing their smoking and drinking consumption, while this consumption remains stable or increases among women.
Diseases of the circulatory system represent the first cause of mortality: in 2003, they accounted for 42.7% of all death among women Heavier weight of cerebro-vascular disease (20.6% of all deaths) among women.Malignancies are the second cause of death, and the highest cause among women aged 25-64 years. Among women, breast cancer represents the leading cause of death among cancer types (2.9% of all deaths).
Breast cancer is the first cause of death among women aged 35-54 years in Portugal.Cervical cancer, although it has a lower impact on mortality, appears as one of the ten main causes of death among the 35-44 years. In addition, mortality due to cervical cancer has increased among the 45-54 years and women older than 75 over the 1990-2002 period (WHO, 2004).
Temporary disability for mental trouble has a higher prevalence among women at 3.9%.
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