The health status among the over 50 in Europe. A comparison between native and foreign born population

Donatella Lanari, Università di Perugia
Odoardo Bussini, Università di Perugia

In developed countries, understanding of the health profile of older people is increasingly important. As various studies have shown, older migrants have generally worse health than the native population with relevant impact on health care demand and social support. The aim of this work is to examine if health differences between immigrants and native born populations aged 50 years and older in 11 European countries exist. We examine differences in self-perceived health, chronic and mental disease controlling for the demographic patterns, socio-economic condition, and behavioural risk by using data from the Survey on Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) database. As the logistic regression as well as multilevel models reveal, older migrants are more likely to have a worse health status in terms of self-perceived and mental health even when accounting for demographic and socio-economic control variables.