Socio-ecological perspective of older age life expectancy: income, gender inequality, and financial crisis in Europe.

backgroundPopulation is aging rapidly in Europe. Older age life expectancy (OLE) can be influenced by country-level depth of credit information (DCI) as an indicator of financial crisis, gross national income (GNI) per capita, and gender inequality index (GII). These factors are key indicators of socio-ecological inequality. They can be used to develop strategies to reduce country-level health disparity. The objective of this study was to confirm the relationship between socio-ecological factors and OLE in Europe.

methodsData were obtained from World Bank, WHO, and UN database for 34 Europe countries. Associations between socio-ecological factors and OLE were assessed with Pearson correlation coefficients and three regression models. These models assumed that appropriate changes in country-level strategies of healthy aging would produce changes in GNI per capital as personal perspective, GII in social environment perspective, and DCI in public policy perspective to implement socio-ecological changes. Hierarchal linear regression was used for final analysis.

resultsAlthough OLE (women and men) had significant negative correlation with GII (gender inequality index, r = - 0.798, p = 0.001), it had positive correlations with GNI (gross national income per capita, r = 0.834, p = 0.001) and DCI (depth of credit information index, r = 0.704, p = 0.001) levels caused by financial crisis. Higher levels GNI and DCI but lower GII were found to be predictors of OLE (women and men) (R

conclusionsFactors affecting older age life expectancy in Europe were identified from socio-ecological perspective. Socio-ecological indicators (GII, GNI, and DCI) in Europe appear to have a latent effect on OLE levels. Thus, country-level strategies of successful aging in Europe should target socio-ecological factors such as GII, GNI, and DCI value.