Health differentials in the older population: An empirical investigation of the materialist, behavioural and psychosocial hypotheses

预计的人口变化对英国来说是一个长期挑战，如果现在和未来几年采取适当的政策应对措施，老龄化社会的成本是可控的。这表明特别需要调查老年人口中的健康不平等现象，但尽管关于这一主题的研究正在增加，但与针对年轻人和中年人，特别是中年男子的工作量相比，仍然很少。拟议工作方案的主要目的是调查老年人口长期以来健康不平等的程度，并从经验上比较物质（即收入、住房、在更安全的环境中生活、获得保健服务）行为（即吸烟、饮食、饮酒、适当利用保健服务）和心理社会（即相对社会地位）对这些不平等的相对贡献。社会融合和接触压力事件)途径，以便为政策制定和未来以人口为基础的干预措施提供信息，以促进健康老龄化。

The projected demographic changes present a long term challenge for the UK with the costs of an ageing society being manageable provided appropriate policy responses are made now and over the coming years. This suggests a particular need to investigate health inequalities in the older population but although research on this topic is increasing it remains sparse in comparison with the volume of work on younger and middle aged people particularly middle aged men. The major aim of the proposed programme of work is to investigate the extent of health inequalities in the older population over time and to empirically compare the relative contribution to these of the materialistic (i.e. income, housing, living in safer environments, access to health care) behavioural (i.e. smoking diet alcohol consumption appropriate use of health care) and psychosocial (i.e. relative social status, social integration and exposure to stressful events) pathways in order to inform policy making and future population based interventions to promote healthy ageing.