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Alves LC and Arruda NM

survey questions (Burgard and Chen, 2014). Despite these limitations, the findings of
our study may have important policy implications in Brazil.

5 Conclusions

The present study is among the first to document changes in disease-free life
expectancy in Brazil during its epidemiologically important period. Healthy life
expectancy or disease-free life expectancy is an important indicator for public health
planning in most countries. In Brazil, some research has studied the healthy life
expectancy in the elderly population. However, this study is one of the few that has
tried to analyze the disease-free life expectancy and the evolution of selected diseases
by socioeconomic status among the elderly.
Regarding our analyses, the findings of this study confirm our initial hypothesis,
which states: socioeconomic status plays a key role in determining the health of
individuals. On the other hand, an improvement in socioeconomic level as measured
by income and education may result in an increase in the number of years lived in
good health. Education was found as more important than income as a socioeconomic
determinant of chronic diseases.
Despite the social changes in Brazil in recent decades which include reduced
inequality and poverty, the effect of socioeconomic inequality on the health status of
the elderly in the country is nevertheless continues to be relevant. Therefore, this study
adds further discussions involving the aging and longevity of the elderly in Brazil. The
lack of and also need for further studies at smaller levels of geographic aggregation,
such as regions, are suggestive of a need for further and different analyses with the
purpose of exploring socioeconomic inequality and health status among the Brazilian
elderly.

Author’s Contribution

LCA designed the study, performed the analysis, drafted and revised the text. NMA co-
performed the analysis and revised the text. Both authors read and approved the final
manuscript.
Ethics Statement

This paper uses publicly available data (PNAD) that has being de-identified and was
deemed exempt from human subjects review.
Conflict of Interest and Funding

No conflict of interest was reported by all authors. This research was supported by
National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) (Process
no.: 471517/2013-5) and by Sao Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) (Process no.:
2016/09585-0).

Acknowledgements

We thank the editor and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments that
improve the content of the manuscript.

References

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preliminar, 15 anos depois do Cairo: Proceedings of the Seminário Brasil, 15 anos após a
Conferência do Cairo, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil.
http://www.abep.nepo.unicamp.br/docs/outraspub/cairo15/Cairo15_3alvescorrea.pdf.
Alves LC and Rodrigues RN (2005). Determinantes da autopercepção de saúde entre idosos do
Município de São Paulo, Brasil [Determinants of self-rated health among elderly persons in
International Journal of Population Studies 2017, Volume 3, Issue 1 75