More than one third of elderly describe health status as ‘good’

A total of 36.4 per cent of Cypriots aged 65 and older see their health as very good or good, with men at 37.6 per cent feeling slightly better than women, at 35.3 per cent, according to data published by Eurostat on Tuesday, marked globally as World Health Day.

With these figures, Cyprus is close to the European Union average, with 40 per cent of people aged 65 and over saying they were in good or very good health.

Eurostat’s data showed the overall tendency for positive self-assessment of health to decrease with age, resulting in higher levels of self-perceived health being reported by younger age groups.

Data collected by the youngest included age group of Cypriots, 16 to 24, confirmed this trend with a total of 95.2 per cent of younger respondents describing their health as good or very good.

This is significantly higher than the number of Cypriots aged 45 to 64, among which only 73.8 per cent reported feeling in good or very good health. This figure is higher for women, 74.2 per cent compared to 73.3 per cent of men.

With these figures, Cyprus records similar levels to the EU average, ranking slightly better in terms of health levels reported by youngsters, which stood at 91.3 per cent in the EU.

More than two thirds of the EU population, 68.5 per cent, perceived their health as good or very good, while 23 per cent ranted their health status as moderate and 8.5 per cent said their health was bad or very bad.

The highest rates among the population aged 65 and over was recorded in Ireland (62 per cent) and Belgium (57.4 per cent). The lowest were recorded in Lithuania (12.5 per cent) and Latvia (13.1 per cent).

In Greece, the figure stood at 45.1 per cent while in Turkey, only 18.7 per cent of elderly people said they were in good or very good health.