[Prevalence of the disability in Spain for autonomous communities: the paper of the individual factors and the geographical environment in the variability].

Background: The prevalence of disability shows a high geographical variability and the identification of factors that could explain these variations can be useful to the heath and social welfare planning. Here the analysis of disability variations among autonomous regions in Spain is made taking into account individual and geographical setting factors together.

Methods: Data come from the Spanish Disability, Impairment and Health Status survey of 1999 and from Inebase both of the National Institute for Statistics.

[Dependence profile in Spain: an analysis from the disability survey of 1999].

Background: In the next future an important demographical ageing will imply a rise in the levels of co morbidity, disability and dependence of the population. The objective if this work was to estimate the dependences profile by means of assessing the levels of severity of the disability in the Spanish general population.

Methods: Data come from the disease, disability and health status survey of 1999 of the Spanish Institute for Statistics, which includes 36 limitations with an score of severity (from 0= absence to 4= unable).

[Differences in reproductive patterns between autochthonous and immigrant women living in Catalonia, Spain].

Objective: To describe differences in reproductive patterns between autochthonous and immigrant women living in Catalonia (Spain).

Methods: Data on legal abortions were obtained from the abortions register in the Regional Ministry of Health, while data on births and the population were drawn from the Institute of Statistics of Catalonia. Depending on the source, the variables <> or <> were used to compose the groups.

[Differences in disability-free life expectancy by gender and autonomous regions in Spain].

Background: Improvement of population health is the main aim and an important challenge for the health system. To monitor the population health indicators like disability-free life expectancy (DFLE) have been implemented. The purpose of this paper was to analyze the geographical distribution of DFLE according to autonomous regions in Spain.