The Blackwell Companion to Medical Sociology

Society, Health, and Health Care in Sweden 301
Trends rends in Mortality ortality and Illness llness in Sweden weden
The long-term development of mortality in Sweden is shown in figure 17.1. In all
age groups there was a steep mortality decline in the century from 1850 to 1950
(the exception to this was a mortality increase amongyoungadults in 1910±20).
For older persons the decline started around 1800, and for infants already in the
eighteenth century. In the age span of 10±50 years there were rather strong
fluctuations duringmost of the period before 1850. After 1950, Swedish
women of all adult age groups experienced a continuation of the declining
trend, and for women in the age group 75±79 years the decline was only slightly
less steep than in the period before 1950. Middle-aged men experienced a slight
increase, and older men a stagnation, in the 1960s and 1970s.
There are no data on long-term trends in ill health. From 1975 there are
annual national surveys includinga number of components of social living
conditions and ill health indicators. Self-perceived general health is a good
indicator of an individual's health status, probably less biased by propensity to
seek contact with health care professionals than most other health indicators.
Nearly all groups reported better health in 1995 as compared with 1975 as seen
in figure 17.2. The only exception to this was for women aged 25±44, although
the prevalence of self-reported illness is very low (