ORIGINAL ARTICLE Advantages and disadvantages across the life course and health status in old age among women in Chile Ignacio Madero-Cabib 1,2 • Ariel Azar 2,3 • Pedro Pe ´ rez-Cruz 2,4 Received: 2 May 2019 / Revised: 22 August 2019 / Accepted: 11 September 2019 Ó Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+) 2019 Abstract Objectives Based on a life course perspective, we assessed the association between three types of social advantages and disadvantages accumulated across different life stages, with the number of self-reported chronic conditions among women aged 60 ? in Chile, a Latin-American country with almost no reports on this matter. Methods We used a population-representative longitudinal survey (Chile’s Social Protection Survey) with information about childhood conditions, economic mobility across life, educational attainment, late adulthood labor-force trajectories, and later-life health, of 2627 women aged 60?. We then used sequence and Poisson regression analyses to assess the effect of life course (dis)advantages over the number of chronic conditions in old age. Results Growing up in a poor household and experiencing downward economic mobility (especially among those with a non-poor childhood) increases the predicted number of chronic conditions in old age. By contrast, having a continuous and formal labor-force trajectory in late adulthood and higher educational attainment is associated with fewer chronic con- ditions later in life. Conclusions Policy measures that seek to foster health prevention and health care among older women should consider how multiple exposures to social advantages/disadvantages during earlier stages of the life course could affect health in late life. Keywords Life course Á Old age Á Chronic conditions Á Women Á Advantages and disadvantages Á Longitudinal methods Á Chile Introduction Health status expressed in old age derives from the accu- mulation of individuals’ exposure to social advantages/ disadvantages throughout different life stages (e.g., child- hood, youth, adulthood), and across multiple domains such as work, family, education, or social networks (Chen et al. 2018; Dannefer 2003). Specifically, social advantages/dis- advantages experienced by people across their lives, such as material conditions (e.g., nutrition, accommodation), psychosocial conditions (e.g., stress, discrimination), health behaviors risks (e.g., tobacco use, alimentary habits, drinking habits), or access to health care and health facil- ities, could affect subsequent health outcomes (Solar and Irwin 2010). This may be particularly relevant for women who are usually in a more vulnerable position due to Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s00038-019-01300-6) con- tains supplementary material, which is available to autho- rized users. & Ariel Azar aazar@uchicago.edu & Pedro Pe ´rez-Cruz peperez@uc.cl Ignacio Madero-Cabib i.maderocabib@uc.cl 1 Instituto de Sociologı ´a & Departamento de Salud Pu ´blica, Pontificia Universidad Cato ´lica de Chile, Santiago, Chile 2 Millennium Nucleus for the Study of the Life Course and Vulnerability (MLIV), Santiago, Chile 3 Department of Sociology, The University of Chicago, 1126 E 59th St, Chicago, IL 60637, USA 4 Departamento de Medicina Interna, Facultad de Medicina, Pontificia Universidad Cato ´lica de Chile, Diagonal Paraguay 362, 5to Piso, oficina 523, 8330077 Santiago Centro, Santiago, Chile 123 International Journal of Public Health https://doi.org/10.1007/s00038-019-01300-6