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Mortality at older ages: patterns and trends in Portugal

Fantina Pedrosa, Universidade do Porto

In the developed countries the mortality of the elderly presents some policy challenges, like the increasing social and health needs of the old people and the emerging issue of the quality of life of the elderly. In Portugal the improvements of life expectancy at old ages are very small. By comparing mortality data from 1991 and 2001 we want to understand the changes in the structure of death at advanced ages and to identify the factors affecting the decline in mortality among the elderly. A very important issue is whether the improvement in mortality is primarily the result of a decline in the incidence of a particular disease or of an increase in the survival rate of the same disease. Finally we will analyse regional differences in mortality at old ages in Portugal and identify the explanation factors.

Presented in Poster Session 4