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. 2020 Dec;48(8):791-793.
doi: 10.1177/1403494820921684. Epub 2020 May 26.

Rural-urban mortality inequalities in four Nordic welfare states

Sven Bremberg  1
Affiliations

Rural-urban mortality inequalities in four Nordic welfare states

Sven Bremberg. Scand J Public Health. 2020 Dec.

Abstract

In the Nordic countries, there are ambitious welfare policies that might reduce rural-urban health disparities.

Aim: To investigate the effect of population density on health in four Nordic countries.

Methods: The health outcomes analysed were life expectancy and potential years of life lost. The effect of population density was appraised as the difference in life expectancy/ potential years of life lost by a 10-fold increase of population density.

Results: In Finland, Norway and Sweden, mortality rates were consistently higher in less densely populated municipalities. These disparities increased over time. Conclusions: The welfare efforts to offset rural-urban disparities have mostly not been sufficient.

Keywords: Nordic; mortality; rural; urban.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest: The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

References

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