Tapani Valkonen

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors report on inequalities in mortality between two broad socioeconomic groups (high and low education level, non-manual and manual occupations) and find that the widening inequalities were sometimes due to increasing mortality decreases from cardiovascular diseases in the lower socioeconomic groups.

TL;DR: Research needs to be broadened to include older populations, other diseases, and populations from different parts of Europe to reduce exposure to cardiovascular risk factors in low-educational groups.

TL;DR: It is found that the association between unemployment and mortality weakens as the general unemployment rate increases, and studies that took place when the unemployment rate was low may overestimate the effect of unemployment on mortality because of unaccounted confounding.

TL;DR: Socioeconomic inequalities in mortality among older men and women were found to persist in each country, sometimes of similar magnitude as those among the middle aged, and in some of the populations, relative inequalities among older women were as large as thoseamong middle aged women.

TL;DR: The results are consistent with the hypothesis that excess mortality after the death of a spouse is partly caused by stress and the loss of social support or the inability to cope with stress may explain why men suffer from bereavement more than do women.