The socioeconomic health gradient in the life course in Canada

It is well known that social position strongly determines health status among adults. Less clear, though, is whether social position also influences healthy aging: do better educated individuals manage to enter old age healthier and to slow down the aging process? Another, related question, is to know whether this social advantage always exists or can be stronger or weaker depending on time and place. Reliable and definitive answers to these questions are nowhere to be found (not only in Canada, internationally), due to methodological and data issues. In this project, we will take advantage of two types of data available in Canada to produce a reliable answer to these two questions, thus contributing to international knowledge and to policy discussions on healthy aging in Canada.