The gaps in life expectancy between rural departments and urban departments have worsened for thirty years, according to a study unveiled by France Bleu on Thursday.
There are 14,216 more deaths per year in rural areas than would be expected if life expectancy were the same as in cities, reveals a study conducted by the Association of Rural Mayors of France (AMRF)* and unveiled Thursday, April 20 by France Blue. According to this study, at equal age and sex, the mortality index of rural living areas is six points higher than that of urban living areas.
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The AMRF has observed a worsening of the gaps in life expectancy between rural departments and urban departments over the past thirty years. Thus, the current life expectancy of inhabitants of rural areas at birth is up to two years less than those of cities. In 2021, among men, it was 78.8 years in departments considered hyper-rural, compared to 80.2 years in hyper-urban departments. Among women, life expectancy at the time was 84.9 years for those in hyper-rural areas and 85.7 years in hyper-urban areas.
The average number of deaths in 2020-2021 was 236,943 in rural living areas (which have a total population of 20.3 million), when it was 662,474 deaths in urban living areas which have 48 million people. ‘residents. The study therefore established a mortality index according to living areas. It emerges that at equal age and sex, the mortality index of rural living areas (104) is six points higher than that of urban living areas (98).
Four proposals
These results therefore confirm, according to the association, that “the location in town or in the countryside is becoming a determining factor in inequalities in life expectancy”. Faced with this observation, the Association of Rural Mayors of France recalls “the importance of proximity in the organization of the health service”. She calls for a “refoundation of health democracy”. For this, it brought together 35 networks of health professionals and elected officials, such as Rural Families or Macif, in order to present proposals for concrete solutions.
Four proposals received consensus: “provide the means for health students to do internships outside the place of initial training (in particular by developing territorial accommodation for health students and transport aid), set up and develop coordinated care teams around the patient ( Escap) and better distribute health professionals” through for example “the creation of a one-stop support service that centralizes, at the level of each department, territorial needs, financial aid, administrative support and information relating to the professional’s family life”. They also plead for “develop new ways of practicing that can provide the population with rapid and local care”.
*Methodology : To establish this study, the Association of Rural Mayors of France relied on civil status figures from INSEE. Regarding the comparative mortality index, the study observed mortality in a population of at least 1,600 inhabitants. “The method of standard rates consists in applying to each of the age and sex groups of the populations under study the series of rates by age and sex observed in a reference or even totally fictitious population, then in calculating the ratio between the deaths observed or the raw mortality rate observed and the deaths qualified as expected, which would be those which would be observed in the populations under study if each of them were subject to the mortality law of the reference population”. A division into 1,666 living areas was then adopted. The index was also adjusted to the age and gender composition of the population of the cantons at the last comprehensive census of 2019.
