Abstract
BackgroundDespite being comparatively egalitarian welfare states, the Nordic countries have not been successful in reducing health inequalities. Previous studies have suggested that smoking and alcohol contribute to this pattern. Few studies have focused on variations in alcohol-related and smoking-related mortality within the Nordic countries. We assess the contribution of smoking and alcohol to differences in life expectancy between countries and between income quintiles within countries.MethodsWe collected data from registers in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden comprising men and women aged 25–79 years during 1995–2007. Estimations of alcohol-related mortality were based on underlying and contributory causes of death on individual death certificates, and smoking-related mortality was based on an indirect method that used lung cancer mortality as an indicator for the population-level impact of smoking on mortality.ResultsAbout 40%–70% of the between-country differences in life expectancy in the Nordic countries can be attributed to smoking and alcohol. Alcohol-related and smoking-related mortality also made substantial contributions to income differences in life expectancy within countries. The magnitude of the contributions were about 30% in Norway, Sweden and among Finnish women to around 50% among Finnish men and in Denmark.ConclusionsSmoking and alcohol consumption make substantial contributions to both between-country differences in mortality among the Nordic countries and within-country differences in mortality by income. The size of these contributions vary by country and sex.
Funder
Suomen Akatemia
Strategic Research Council of the Academy of Finland
NordForsk
Horizon 2020 Framework Programme
Subject
Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health,Epidemiology
Reference32 articles.
1. Eurostat. Mortality and Life Expectancy Statistics. 2017 http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Mortality_and_life_expectancy_statistics (accessed 26 Feb 2018).
2. Health behavior in the Nordic countries;Ásgeirsdóttir;Nordic Journal of Health Economics,2016
3. Gender and alcohol consumption: patterns from the multinational GENACIS project
4. Socioeconomic Inequalities in Health in 22 European Countries
5. Monitoring of trends in socioeconomic inequalities in mortality: Experiences from a European project;Kunst;Demographic Research,2004
Cited by
41 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献