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DUBLIN CITY IS home to people with the worst health in Ireland, while Dún-Laoghaire-Rathdown is the area with the best health rates in the country, according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
In 2016, a total of 89.9% of people in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown said their health was very good or good – this was the highest rate in the country.
It was followed by Meath (89.6%) and Kildare and Cork County, both at 89.5%. Meanwhile, Dublin City had the lowest percentage at 82.8%, with Cork City and Longford the next lowest at 83.6% and 85.3% respectively.
These statistics are contained in the latest Health, Disability and Carers report from the CSO.
Last year, 87% of the population felt they had good or very good health, down slightly from 2011 when it was 88.3%.
Nearly six in 10 (59.5%) of men felt their health was very good, compared to 59.3% of women.
Disabilities
Meanwhile, the report found a significant increase in the number of people with a disability in Ireland.
There were a total of 643,131 people who said they had a disability in April 2016, accounting for 13.5% of the population. This represented an increase of 47,796 people (8%) on the 2011 figure of 595,335.
Up to one in 10 people between the age of 45 had a disability, rising to 20% by the age of 60.
The report showed that rates increased sharply above the age of 70, with 27.7% of females aged 70-74 having a disability and 73.3% of females older than 84.
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While the rate of disability fell for all categories above 45 years old, the increase in the number of older people means the actual number of people with a disability over 65 has increased by 20,319 over the five years, from 204,069 in 2011 to 224,388 in 2016.
Between 2011 and 2016, the numbers of people with different disabilities increased across all categories. The largest increase was among those with a psychological or emotional condition, which rose by 28.7% from 27,511 to 123,515 over the five year period.
Those with a vision impairment increased by 6% to 54,810.
Education and employment
Educational achievements among people with disabilities were much lower than that of the general population at all levels.
Among those aged 15 to 50, 13.7% had completed no higher than primary level education, compared with 4.2% of the general population.
Of those with a disability aged 15 and over in April 2016, just 22.3% were in work, compared with 53.4% of the overall population in that age group.
A total of 26.3% of people with a disability were unemployed in 2016, more than double the 12.9% rate for the population as a whole.
Rehab, an Irish charity for people with disabilities, has called on the government to tackle the unemployment rates among people with disabilities.
“While these figures are not shocking, they are unacceptably high. Every day in our services throughout the country we support people into employment, and we speak people who can want to work, but the supports are simply not available,” Kathleen O’Meara, spokesperson for Rehab said.
The government needs to take proactive steps to ensure there are enough jobs for people with disabilities.
“We hear from the government that unemployment levels have dropped significantly since the recession in 2008, but people with disabilities are not feeling any of this recovery,” O’Meara said.
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Finally the supporting evidence for a new skanger tax.
@Tweed Cap: stupid stats based on personal opinions..peoples idea of healthy/unhealthy is very subjective.
@Tweed Cap: ha ha I thought Skanger tax went out with the Greyhound skirt……!!
@Tweed Cap: to be fair, not often you see a thin skagner
@MaryLoonyMcDonald: Since Ireland has no doctors, you can’t really have stats based on anything else than personal opinions.
@Eamo Hansen: Pop down to the board walk and have a butchers, you will see plenty skin and bones along there.
I don’t think it’s correct to say that Dublin is home to the people with the worst health, it is home to the people who THINK they have the worst health. It was a very subjective question.
Breaking news Dublin has the highest percentage of people in Ireland
@Conor O’Regan: Breaking news: Commenter doesn’t understand percentages
Breaking news: original commenter is perfectly correct in saying that dublin has the highest percentage of people in Ireland making replying commenter understanding of percentages unsure
Breaking news: Supplies of unbroken news running dangerously low.
@Conor O’Regan: Id ask the Dublin City Council to see If they could come up with some initiatives or ideas to try help but they are busy with motions on whose flag we should fly on City Hall in support of problems in other cities in the world so best leave them alone. ….Maybe try the HSE they seem like an organised bunch…..
I know someone who brings in Christmas cake for lunch in the new year. He eats it in between 2 cuts of bread….. He is from Dublin!
@Alan O’Rourke: I know someone who makes irrelevant comments about co-workers eating Christmas Cake just after Christmas.
@Alan O’Rourke: A cake sandwich? Jaysus I heard it all now.
@Bat Daly: if only your powers of deduction matched your moodiness! I don’t work with them at all! Muhahahaha
@Alan O’Rourke: I know a few that eat Xmas pudding on bread. Vile.
Walk down Talbot Street and you will believe it.
@John O’Neill: you would think most of them would be fit and healthy what with all the tracksuits they wear.
Monster Munch and Spice Bags : Dublin Cuisine
@TonyF: Along with your grammar! worst…..w o r s t.
Maybe you should change the headline to say ‘the highest proportion’??
Surely health should include your mental health as that very important in deciding your overall health so how could the many people stressed out with insane rents and no security of tenure be in good or very good health nevermind even fair health with the stress that causes.
@Jay Lane: Spot on. These are Government survey figures that were created by the government, and I’d say that they’re either a very, very reserved and tweaked and re-tweaked calculation, or they were performed while the subjects were highly intoxicated. There’s way too much damage and hurt out there, much more than you can imagine.
@Jay Lane: Not that many people are really stressing about it. As a portion of the population not that many are really renting and then only a portion of that are struggling. Don’t let the headlines fool you. Dublin also has a big concentration of wealth so many don’t have financial worries.
Living in a remote area of a dwindling population with no social outlet is probably more of a problem. Pretty sure that is backed up by suicide figures too.
@Jay Lane: Bravo, well said ! Students in particular, live in hovels and pay enormous rents whilst having the worry of exams. It is nigh impossible for people to buy a home in Dublin, people who are from Dublin, and want to stay here.
13.5% of the country have a disability?? That’s more than one in eight of us, this is quite alarming to me. No wonder the health service costs the state so much with the amount of people obviously claiming disability for one thing or other on top of the layers of middle and upper management pushing and stamping paper from one desk to another.
@Derek: The DSP take years to finalise any disabiity payment & you of course everyone has to prove their disability by many doctors & DSP inspectors. The DSP even send letters out every year asking people if their leg has grown back and if their son/daughter still has Down Syndrome. This is the indignity of the DSP system & with a medical card they can only join the 700,000 other citizens waiting and even dying in agony on the waiting listso including many vulnerable children and elderly people who have to beg their dignity away on liveline etc to try get their vital operations. Disabilities also cost far more than pittance sub sistance the government gives especially electricity and heating costs, with the government increasing the Green Party’s tree hugging PSO levi last month,months before their measly increase & so the government will rob the increase well before Christmas never mind the end of march when the measly increase is due,nearly 3 months after every employee gets their increase on New years day.
What else would you expect when it’s the local Chipper that’s used to feed the family on a daily basis.
Sure isn’t Dublin stuffed solid with Culchies, revving up their shiny new cars and polluting the population in Dublin, especially around Sandyford where the likes of me, a Dub, has to live and breathe. Asthma, Bronchitis, cardiovascular ailments are rampant on busy roads, so will yiz all go home and get back to organic farming or take early retirement from the Civil Service. If Dublin is such a sh-t hole, go home. laugh.
@Rosemarie Martin: it’s not shiny cars I said you should be fretting about Rosie
Well we’ve always carried more weight in Ireland. Hooray for the tubby-dubs.
@O Swetenham: up the flats
There is a huge obesity problem in Ireland in general. It is absolutely shocking walking around Dublin city centre and see the amount of overweight people. Our health services is already on its knees, it will be on the floor within a decade with all the obese related illness piling up.
People who think they’re unhealthy. Maybe the rest of the country is just deluded.
Such a high percentage of people class themselves healthy yet there is such a high percentage of overweight & obese people. Lots are living in denial or lots dont really understand what proper health actually feels like perhaps..
Given the staggering levels of overweight and obesity in Ireland it’s clear many people are in denial about their state of health.
Typical Jackeens. You just can’t teach some people.
Work hard, play hard.
@Diar O Doc: Drink hard, eat hard…
The census question actually referred to significant visual impairment.including both mild and severe, research estimates 225,000.
Check out @FitFlick… new social fitness app coming to Dublin soon. Founded by two DCU graduates.
The situation will get worse when those “surplus” parks get built on.
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