Introduction: One of the drawbacks to using life expectancy to evaluate the health status of a country is the
absence of capturing ‘healthy’ years and/or the quality of lived years. Self-rated health provides more information to
the health discourse, which are not supplied by life expectancy.
Objectives:
In the current study we seek to 1) determine the health conditions of people living beyond the life
expectancy in Jamaica, 2) examine the health status of people living beyond the life expectancy in Jamaica, and 3)
evaluate factors that influence good self-rated health status of people living beyond the life expectancy in Jamaica.
Methods:
For this work, data from 2007 Jamaica Survey of Living Conditions was utilised. The sub-sample for
this study was 321 men and women beyond 71 years and 74 years respectively.
Findings:
Fifty-one percent of the sample reported an illness (females, 51.9%; males, 50.0%); 3.6 times more
females were diagnosed with diabetes mellitus than males and 1.3 times more females having hypertension than
males. However, 2.7 times more males were diagnosed with arthritis than their female aged counterparts (
?
2
=
25.844, P < 0.0001). A statistical relationship existed between self-reported illness and self-rated health status (
?
2
=
51.547, P < 0.0001).
Conclusion:
The is enough empirical evidence to support gendered health and area-specific perspectives in the
health care and management of people living beyond the life expectancy and that intervention programmes must be
tailored with these new knowledge.