Lower life expectancy in deprived districts – inequality has increased in Germany in recent decades

Residents of socioeconomically deprived regions die earlier than those in wealthier areas, this is also true for Germany. A research team led by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) has now shown that the life expectancy gap between Germany’s deprived and affluent regions is wider today than it was 20 years ago – and showed that cardiovascular diseases and cancer were the most important contributors to the socioeconomic life expectancy gap. The results have now been published in the journal The Lancet Public Health and in the Bundesgesundheitsblatt. According to the authors, creating equivalent living conditions across the country is an important area of action to improve health equity in Germany.