Census finds 60% in 'very good health'

More than 60 per cent of people living in the State consider themselves to be in very good health, according to the findings of the 2011 cenus.

The occurence of health failing with age is reflected in the data with just one in three people aged 65 and over saying they were in very good health, compared to 87 per cent of people aged between 10 and 14 years.

Some 40 per cent respondents aged over 80 were said to be experiencing bad or very bad health with 60 the age at which more than one in five began reporting their health as being fair or worse. More than 4 million respondents (88 per cent) said their health was either very good (2.77 million) or good (1.28 million) with just 69,661 (1.5 per cent) reporting that they were in a bad (57,243) or very bad (12,418) condition.

The CSO introduced a new question on general health for the first time in census 2011 and asked respondents to select one of five responses ranging from very good to very bad. “Self-perceived health provides a well validated and widely used measure of actual health, despite its subjective nature,” the CSO said.

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Six of the seven counties where the best health was reported were in the greater Dublin area (excluding the city) with Cork the only county outside Leinster making the top seven. Residents of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown rated themselves the healthiest in Ireland, while Limerick city inhabitants reported the worst health.

In demographic terms, 76 per cent of respondents in social class 1 (professional workers) believed their health to be very good but this fell to only 45 per cent in class 6 (unskilled workers).

The figures show that the proportion of Irish residents with a disability increased from 9.3 per cent (393,785) in 2006 to 13 per cent (595,335) in 2011, a rise of 201,550. The spike can be attributed to a changes to the census question on disability, which now includes ailments such as asthma and chronic pain, the CSO said.

Disability was more common among women (13.2 per cent) than men (12.7 per cent) and the the rates of disability increased with age group, people in their twenties, who had lower disability rates than teenagers. A total of 112,502 people with a disability were employed, accounting for 6.2 per cent of the workforce.

The number of people aged over 15 years who classified themselves as carers increased by 13 per cent to 182,884. The number of male carers increased by 20 per cent between 2006 and 2011 but women continue to outnumber men by 114,113 to 72,999.

Some 80,891 people provided up to two hours of care per day with a further 15,175 providing care on a 24 hour basis. A total of 4,228 children aged 14 or less provided care on a regular basis.