PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Jose R Rubio Valverde AU - Johan P Mackenbach AU - Wilma J Nusselder TI - Trends in inequalities in disability in Europe between 2002 and 2017 AID - 10.1136/jech-2020-216141 DP - 2021 Aug 01 TA - Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health PG - 712--720 VI - 75 IP - 8 4099 - http://jech.bmj.com/content/75/8/712.short 4100 - http://jech.bmj.com/content/75/8/712.full SO - J Epidemiol Community Health2021 Aug 01; 75 AB - Background Monitoring socioeconomic inequalities in population health is important in order to reduce them. We aim to determine if educational inequalities in Global Activity Limitation Indicator (GALI) disability have changed between 2002 and 2017 in Europe (26 countries).Methods We used logistic regression to quantify the annual change in disability prevalence by education, as well as the annual change in prevalence difference and ratio, both for the pooled sample and each country, as reported in the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) and the European Social Survey (ESS) for individuals aged 30–79 years.Results In EU-SILC, disability prevalence tended to decrease among the high educated. As a result, both the prevalence difference and the prevalence ratio between the low and high educated increased over time. There were no discernible trends in the ESS. However, there was substantial heterogeneity between countries in the magnitude and direction of these changes, but without clear geographical patterns and without consistency between surveys.Conclusions Socioeconomic inequalities in disability appear to have increased over time in Europe between 2002 and 2017 as per EU-SILC, and have persisted as measured by the ESS. Efforts to further harmonise disability instruments in international surveys are important, and so are studies to better understand international differences in disability trends and inequalities.Data may be obtained from a third party and are not publicly available. Availability of data and materials: the following data from the European Social Survey were used: ESS Round 1: European Social Survey Round 1 Data (2002), data file edition 6.6; ESS Round 2: European Social Survey Round 2 Data (2004), data file edition 3.6; ESS Round 3: European Social Survey Round 3 Data (2006), data file edition 3.7; ESS Round 4: European Social Survey Round 4 Data (2008), data file edition 4.5; ESS Round 5: European Social Survey Round 5 Data (2010), data file edition 3.4; ESS Round 6: European Social Survey Round 6 Data (2012), data file edition 2.4; ESS Round 7: European Social Survey Round 7 Data (2014), data file edition 2.2; ESS Round 8: European Social Survey Round 8 Data (2016), data file edition 2.1; Norwegian Centre for Research Data (NSD), Norway–data archive and distributor of ESS data for ESS ERIC. This study is based on data from Eurostat, European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions survey, reference years 2005–2017.