Statistics Portugal released the main results of the National Health Survey (INS), carried out in the 4th quarter of 2025, on June 24, 2026. This Press Release provides a more detailed analysis of the health-related information of the population aged 65 and over in the following dimensions:
• sensory or physical difficulties, with the results showing that difficulties in biting or chewing (17.1% of older people) and climbing or descending 12 steps without assistance (16.9%) were the most reported by older people;
• barriers to participation in specific aspects of life due to long-term health problems, with older population citing, above all, obstacles to mobility: in the use of transport (16.9% of older people), in accessing and using buildings and facilities (16.0%) and in mobility outside the home (15.7%);
• difficulties in personal care and carrying out domestic activities, with 45.9% of older people reporting difficulty in at least one domestic activity, whilst 16.9% of older people reported having at least one difficulty with personal care;
• informal care, with 22.4% of older people reporting that they had received informal support or assistance and 11.9% of older people having provided informal care to other people;
• social support, with more than a third of older people (34.3%) benefitting from strong social support;
• vaccination, with higher vaccination rates against influenza and COVID-19 than those recorded for pneumonia and, in general, lower proportions of the older population vaccinated in the Autonomous Regions;
• chronic conditions, with the results showing that high blood pressure affects 55.5% of older people and that half of this population group suffers from low back pain or other chronic back problems;
• consumption of medicines, with a particular focus on the higher prevalence of regular use of prescribed medicines for high blood pressure, diabetes and high blood lipid levels amongst the elderly population compared with people aged 15 to 64: it was also found that the elderly population habitually used medication less frequently to treat depression and anxiety than people aged 15 to 64;
• accidents in the home or during leisure activities, confirming that the occurrence of domestic or leisure accidents with injury increases with age, reaching 9.7% of persons aged 85 or over, compared with 6.4% for the population aged 65 or over and 3.2% for people aged 15 to 64.
