Good health depends on class, gender and location

THE BEST way to be in a state of good health is to be a wealthy married woman living in a city suburb, to judge from the latest census findings on people’s physical wellbeing.

Overall, city dwellers have the poorest levels of general health, despite the fact that inhabitants of suburbs in the five main cities enjoy the best overall health. Some 92.1 per cent of the suburban population have good or very good health compared with 88.4 per cent in cities.

Aside from the suburbs, people living in rural areas had the best overall health, with over 90 per cent enjoying good or very good health and only 1.4 per cent describing their health as bad or very bad.

According to the census, Limerick city is the country’s health blackspot with 2.6 per cent of people having bad or very bad health.

It was followed by the cities of Cork, Dublin and Waterford, while Galway was the healthiest city with 88 per cent enjoying good or very good health.

The healthiest areas are Meath and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, where 90.6 per cent say they are healthy or very health, followed closely by Fingal.

The census returns confirm the findings of other surveys by showing the clear inverse relationship that exists between health and social class.

While 95 per cent of people in the top social class enjoy good or very good health, this drops to under 75 per cent for the lowest social class.

Sadly, health appears to decline sharply with age; 87 per cent of 10- to 14-year-olds perceived their health as very good, but this tumbles to 60 per cent for the 40- to 44-year-olds and 30 per cent by age 65-69.

By age 85 and over, only one in 10 describes their health as very good. For most age groups, women are more likely to enjoy very good health.

A total of 595,335 people, or 13 per cent of the population, are recorded as having a disability. Rates generally increase with age, from under 10 per cent for those in their 20s to over 75 per cent for women aged 85 and over. Almost nine out of 10 people aged 65 and over and living in a nursing home said they were disabled.

The 2011 census shows a marked increase in the number of people with disabilities over the previous census in 2006, but this may in part be due to changes in the wording of the questions asked. Over a five-year period, the number has grown by more than 50 per cent to 200,000.

Limerick city, with 18.2 per cent of people disabled, has the highest rate followed by Cork, Waterford and Dublin cities. Galway has the lowest rate of disability.

Outside the cities, the lowest rates were recorded in Oranmore (6.9 per cent) and Stamullen (7 per cent), while the highest were found in Castlerea (22.4 per cent) and Kilrush (21.8 per cent).

The census records almost 25,000 disabled adult children living with a parent and 106,270 disabled people living alone.

Levels of education and participation in the labour force among disabled people were substantially lower than in the general population. Disabled people were half as likely to be at work compared to others.