Health inequalities in urban and rural Canada: comparing inequalities in survival according to an individual and area-based deprivation index.

Social health inequalities are smaller in rural than urban areas because, some argue, people's social conditions are estimated at a small-area level, hiding variability at the individual or household level. This paper compares inequalities in survival according to an individual and area-based version of a deprivation index among a large sample of Canadians living in various urban and rural settings. Results show that survival inequalities in small towns and rural areas are lower than elsewhere when an area-based index is used, except in the remote hinterland, but of equal magnitude when the individual version of this index is considered. Crown Copyright 2009. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.