Material and Social Deprivation Associated with Public Health Actual Causes of Death among Older People in Europe: Longitudinal and Multilevel Results from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE)

Background - Adverse socioeconomic conditions at the individual and regional levels are associated with an increased risk of mortality. However, few studies have examined this relationship using multilevel analysis and, if so, only within a single country. This study aimed to examine this relationship using data from several European countries. Methods - Individual-level data were obtained from Waves 5 to 9 of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, while regional-level data were obtained from the Luxembourg Income Study Database. Cox regression analysis with gamma-shared frailty and a random intercept for country of residence was used to examine the association between individual mortality from all causes, cancer, heart attack, and stroke and measures of socioeconomic deprivation at the individual level, including material and social deprivation indices, and at the area level, including the Gini index. Results - The risk of mortality from all causes was increased for respondents with material deprivation (hazard ratio (HR) = 1.77, 95% CI = [1.60, 1.96]) and social deprivation (HR = 7.63, 95% CI = [6.42, 9.07]) compared with those without. A similar association was observed between individual deprivation and the risk of mortality from cancer, heart attack, or stroke. Regional deprivation had a modest contextual effect on the individual risk of death from all causes and cancer. However, when individual-level deprivation was included in the models, no contextual effects were found. Conclusions - The results indicate that individual socioeconomic conditions significantly predict causes of death in older European adults, with those with material deprivation and social deprivation having a higher risk of death from all causes, including cancer, heart attack, and stroke, while the Gini index has a minimal effect, although the Gini index reflects regional disparities across Europe.