Background: To estimate the effect of marital status, household size, employment status, educational level and occupation on mortality.
Subjects and method: About 3,100,000 persons 24 years and older resident on first of May, 1996 in Autonomous Community of Madrid. For the next 19 months information on individuals who died were obtained by linking Mortality Register and 1996 Population Census.
Results: Except for household size, the effect on mortality of characteristics analysed was higher in individuals aged 25 to 44 years than in other group of age. In general, married persons had the lowest mortality, except for men older than 64 years where the lowest mortality was found in the never married category. Men aged 45 to 64 years who lived alone had higher mortality than those who lived with other people, while mortality in people aged older than 64 years increased with household size. Inactive persons had higher mortality than active people. Higher education level and higher skilled occupation were associated with lower mortality, except for women aged 45 to 64 years.
Conclusions: This study has identified population groups associated with increased risk of mortality. Monitoring the trend of mortality in those groups will make possible to found the rational basis to implement social and health programmes.