Majority of Mayo people enjoy 'very good' health

THE Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today published information from Census 2016  dealing with people's health as well as issues in respect of disability and carers.

The report revealed the health of majority of those living in Mayo was either “very good” (73,137 people, 56.0%) or “good” (39,414 people, 30.2%), compared with 55.7% (“very good”), and 30.8% (“good”) in 2011.

The 1.8% (2,303 people) who stated that their health was “bad/very bad” was above the percentage at national level, and a 4.8% decrease on the 2,418 who stated that their health was “bad/very bad” in 2011.

In 2011, the 17,710 people with at least one disability comprised 13.6% of Mayo’s population. In Census 2016, the 17,977 people with at least one disability made up 13.8% of the county’s population, compared with 13.5% at national level. Of these, 8,769 (48.8%) were male and 9,208 (51.2%) were female.

In Mayo, 8,379 people indicated that they had “a difficulty with pain, breathing, or any other chronic illness or condition”, while 1,571 indicated they had blindness or a serious visual impairment and 3,124 had deafness or a serious hearing impairment.

The 6,129 people who stated that they “provided regular unpaid personal help for a friend or family member with a long-term illness, health problem or disability” comprised 4.7% of the county’s population in April 2016. This was a decrease of 429 people (6.5%) on 2011.

Of the carers in the county, 3,670 were female (59.9%), and 2,459 were male (40.1%). There were 105 carers aged under 15 years, compared with 146 in 2011.

Carers provided 212,147 hours of care per week, an average of 38.7 hours per carer per week. The total amount of weekly care hours was a decrease of 36,568 hours (14.7%) on 2011. {Note: not all carers indicated the number of care hours

The report showd that 87.0% of the population considered themselves to be in “very good” (59.4%) or “good” (27.6%) health. 643,131 people, or 13.5% of the population, indicated that they had a disability and the number of carers (people providing regular unpaid help for a friend/family member) increased by 8,151 (4.4%) to 195,263.

Deirdre Cullen, Senior Statistician, commented: “Census 2016 was the second census in which the Irish public were asked to rate their own health so we can now make comparisons over time. The report also provides detailed data and analysis on those with a disability while also examining changes in relation to carers, looking at issues such as the age and gender profile of carers, the number of carers in each county, and the hours of care provided.”