According to data from the National Institute of Statistics (INE) publication “Income and Living Conditions State of Health 2021” state that this positive self-assessment of health status was made by 50.2% of the population, 1.1 percentage points (pp) less than in the previous year (51.3%).

“This decrease was fully offset by the increase in the proportion of the population that assessed their health status as reasonable, from 35.5% in 2020 to 36.6% in 2021”, they underline.

Despite having decreased in both sexes, the positive assessment of health status continued to be more frequent in men (54.2% in 2021 and 55.7% in 2020) than in women (46.6% in 2021 and 47.4% in 2020), with a difference of almost 8 pp.

According to INE, people with complete secondary or post-secondary education (66.2%) and higher education (74.1%) recorded the highest proportions of positive assessment of their health status last year.

The results of the INE study also indicate that the prevalence of chronic disease or prolonged health problems affected 43.9% of the population resident in Portugal aged 16 or over, 0.7 pp more than in 2020 and 2.7 pp more. pp than in 2019, reaching the highest value since 2016.

“In 2021, as in previous years, this situation continued to affect more women (47%) than men (40.4%), and especially the elderly (71.4%), in a proportion equivalent to 2.1 times that of people under 65 years old (34.1%)”, says the INE.

The prevalence of chronic diseases or long-term health problems affected 80.1% of the population without any level of education, a proportion much higher than that of people with basic education (53.3%) and almost three times that of those with secondary education or higher (both with around 31%).

This situation affects more the retired population (71.1%) compared to the employed (30.9%) or unemployed (40.6%).

In 2021, 34.9% of the population aged 16 or over reported having some limitation in carrying out activities due to health problems and, of this, 9.6% reported a severe degree of limitation, says the INE, noting that it is the highest value since 2016.