Press releases and reports - Self-assessment of the state of health by the population of Ukraine

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Press releases and reports

Self-assessment of the state of health by the population of Ukraine

Sakhno Yulia

On May 19 – 28, 2017 Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) conducted an all-Ukrainian public opinion poll. Data were collected from 2040 respondents living in 108 settlements (PSU) in all oblasts of Ukraine (except for the AR of Crimea) with the method of personal interviewing. The sample was stochastic and is representative of the population of Ukraine aged 18 and above.

In Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts survey was conducted only in the territories that are controlled by the Ukrainian government.

The statistical sampling error (with a probability of 0.95 and for a design effect of 1.5) does not exceed:

3.3% — for indexes close to 50%,

2.8% — for indexes close to 25%,

2.0% — for indexes close to 10%,

1.4% — for indexes close to 5%.

Kyiv International Institute of Sociology monitors the dynamics of self-assessment of the state of health among the Ukrainians since 1995. Survey data show that over the past two years, the state of health of Ukrainian residents remains virtually unchanged: research records neither improvement nor a statistically significant deterioration in how the Ukrainians assess their own health compared with data from 2015. Overall, as to the data of May 2017, 38% of adult Ukrainian residents assessed their health as good or very good, 41% - as mediocre (neither good nor bad), 20% - as bad or very bad.

Various factors can influence the state of health, they include age, gender, level of financial well-being, place of residence, and other factors.

First of all, the state of health is closely related to the age: the older the person, the greater the likelihood that he/she will have some kind of a health problem. According to the combined data from the studies conducted over the past two years (May 2015 - May 2017), among young people aged 18 to 29 years, 70% feel healthy, among those aged 30 to 39% years - 56%, among those aged 40 to 49 years - 39%, among those aged 50 to 59 years - 25%, among those aged 60 to 69% years - 12%, and among those who are older than 70 years - only 6%.

Self-assessment of health is also influenced by gender: in all age groups, men evaluate their health a little better than women. In general, 45% of all men aged 18 years and above called themselves healthy, and among women, this percentage is 33%.

As before, there is a strong link between the state of health and financial well-being: the better the material standard of living, the greater the number of those who have good health. According to the polls of 2015-2017, among the least affluent (those who lack money even for food) people, only 21% called themselves healthy, among people with a relatively high level of material welfare (they could afford to buy expensive things) - 70%. That is, a higher level of financial well-being provides better opportunities for caring for own health (both disease prevention and treatment).

*Note: the category "We can afford everything we want" during the analysis was united with the category «We can afford to buy some expensive things” due to an insufficient filling of the former.

The percentage of those who feel healthy is slightly higher in urban areas (40%) than in rural areas (34%). This may be related both to the work conditions and the level of material well-being (which is better in cities than rural areas) and to the availability of health services (there is a more developed network of medical institutions in cities).

The state of health is an important condition for happiness: among those who have very good health, 88% feel happy, and among those who have very poor health only 19% feel happy.

Addition

Table 1.Distribution of answers to the question “How would you evaluate the state of your health?" (Ukraine without the temporarily occupied territories, %)

	May 2015	May 2016	December 2016	May 2017
Very good	3.8	4.9	4.7	5.6
Good	35.9	33.6	32.4	32.3
Mediocre (neither good nor bad)	40.5	40.4	44.4	41.0
Bad	15.8	16.8	14.4	16.0
Very bad	2.8	3.5	2.8	4.3
Difficult to say	1.1	0.7	1.3	0.9
Total	100	100	100	100

Table 2. Self-evaluation of the state of health – distribution by age (combined data from 2015-17, %)

	18-29 years	30-39 years	40-49 years	50-59 years	60-69 years	70 and above	Total
Very good	13.3	5.7	2.5	1.8	1.1	0.5	4.8
Good	56.8	50.1	36.9	23.6	11.1	5.3	33.5
Mediocre (neither good nor bad)	24.7	37.0	48.8	55.8	52.6	36.6	41.6
Bad	3.7	5.5	9.0	15.0	29.9	44.0	15.8
Very bad	0.6	0.7	2.0	2.8	4.4	12.5	3.3
Difficult to say	0.9	0.9	0.9	1.1	0.9	1.1	1.0
Total	100	100	100	100	100	100	100

Table 3. Self-evaluation of the state of health – distribution by gender (combined data from 2015-17, %)

	Men	Women	Total
Very good	6.8	3.2	4.8
Good	37.8	30.0	33.5
Mediocre (neither good nor bad)	39.7	43.2	41.6
Bad	12.7	18.3	15.8
Very bad	2.1	4.4	3.3
Difficult to say	1.0	1.0	1.0
Total	100	100	100

Table 4. Self-evaluation of the state of health – distribution by age and gender (combined data from 2015-17, %)

	Men						Women
	18-29 years	30-39 years	40-49 years	50-59 years	60-69 years	70 and above	18-29 years	30-39 years	40-49 years	50-59 years	60-69 years	70 and above
Very good	17.2	6.7	3.6	2.5	1.5	1.0	9.2	4.7	1.5	1.3	0.9	0.2
Good	53.6	53.6	38.8	27.7	15.4	7.4	60.0	46.5	35.0	20.2	8.1	4.4
Mediocre (neither good nor bad)	22.7	33.0	44.7	53.3	53.3	46.0	26.9	41.0	52.5	57.8	52.1	32.4
Bad	4.7	5.8	9.3	13.3	25.5	37.1	2.6	5.3	8.6	16.3	32.9	47.1
Very bad	0.5	0.4	2.4	2.1	3.5	7.6	0.7	1.1	1.6	3.3	5.0	14.7
Difficult to say	1.4	0.4	1.1	1.1	0.8	1.0	0.5	1.4	0.7	1.1	1.0	1.2
Total	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100

Table 5. Self-evaluation of the state of health – distribution by the level of financial well-being (combined data from 2015-17, %)

	Take a look at the card, please, and tell which one of the proposed statements describes the financial well-being of your family the most accurately?
	We do not have enough money even for food	We have money for food but buying clothes is troublesome	We have money for food, clothes, and we can save some money	We can afford to buy some expensive things / We can afford to buy everything we want*	Total
Very good	3.4	3.3	7.1	14.3	4.8
Good	18.0	29.6	47.6	56.0	33.5
Mediocre (neither good nor bad)	40.8	45.9	36.2	26.1	41.6
Bad	29.8	16.7	7.0	1.9	15.8
Very bad	7.5	3.3	1.2	1.1	3.3
Difficult to say	0.4	1.1	1.0	0.6	1.0
Total	100	100	100	100	100

* Note: the category "We can afford to buy everything we want" during the analysis was united with the category «We can afford to buy some expensive things” due to an insufficient filling of the former.

Table 6. Self-evaluation of the state of health – distribution by the place of residence (combined data from 2015-17, %)

	Urban population	Rural population	Total
Very good	5.5	3.3	4.8
Good	34.9	30.8	33.5
Mediocre (neither good nor bad)	41.0	42.9	41.6
Bad	14.4	18.4	15.8
Very bad	3.0	4.0	3.3
Difficult to say	1.2	0.6	1.0
Total	100	100	100

Table 7. Feeling of happiness – distribution be the state of health (combined data of 2015-17, %)

		How would you evaluate the state of your health?
		Very good	Good	Mediocre (neither good nor bad)	Bad	Very bad	Total
Do you consider yourself to be a happy person?	Yes	64.4%	35.0%	18.5%	12.2%	10.2%	25.0%
	Rather yes than no	24.0%	40.0%	31.4%	18.8%	9.0%	31.2%
	Both yes and no	4.7%	18.2%	29.3%	25.6%	17.1%	23.3%
	Rather no than yes	2.9%	4.9%	12.9%	24.6%	21.3%	11.8%
	No	3.6%	1.7%	6.6%	18.2%	41.7%	7.8%
	Difficult to say	0.5%	0.2%	1.3%	0.7%	0.7%	0.8%
	Total	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%