Pedro Fuentes Gómez¹, Sandra Amador Moreno¹, ANA MARIA LUCAS OCHOA², Lorena Cuenca Bermejo², Emiliano Fernández Villalba¹, Valeria Raparelli³, Colleen Norris⁴, Alexandra Kautzky-Willer⁵, Karolina Kublickiene⁶, Louise Pilote⁷, Maria Trinidad Herrero Ezquerro²

(1) Clinical and Experimental Neuroscience (NiCE), Institute for Aging Research, Biomedical Institute for Bio-Health Research of Murcia (IMIB-Arrixaca), School of Medicine, Campus Mare Nostrum, University of Murcia, España (Región de Murcia)
(2) NEUROCIENCIA CLÍNICA Y EXPERIMENTAL, IMIB-Arrixaca, España
(3) Department of Transnational Medicine, University of Ferrara, Ferrara, Italia
(4) Faculty of Nursing, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alta, Cardiovascular and Stroke Strategic Clinical Network, Alberta Health Services, Edmonton, Alta, Canadá
(5) Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Department of Medicine III, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
(6) Department of Renal Medicine, Institution for Clinical Science, Intervention and Technology, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Suecia
(7) Research Institute of McGill University Health Centre, Division of Clinical Epidemiology McGill University, Montréal,, Canadá

World's population is exponentially aging as people reaching 100 years old has increased. There are five regions in the world with the highest centennial population rates (Blue Zones), which share series of social agents and principles, called “Nine Powers”. The information about centennial population is scarce in Spain. Therefore, the goal of this study was to determine the possible influence of sex, rurality and socioeconomic factors (Gross Domestic Product (GDP)) on the prevalence of the centennial population of the Spanish society. The Spanish register of inhabitants was published in 2017 by the National Statistics Institute.

The analysis was carried out both by Autonomous Communities and by provinces in phases: a first descriptive analysis, followed by an inferential analysis, based on statistical tests (independent T-student test, Pearson correlation and ANOVA).

The influence of variables under study indicated that: i) sex influences in longevity as the female centennial population was higher compared to the male centennial population; ii) rurality was a determining factor in the long-lived population in Spain as rural areas had a significantly higher proportion of the centennial population; iii) in general, the socioeconomic factor (GDP per Capita) as an independent variable was not a determinant in longevity of the Spanish population; but iv) there were statistically significant differences taking into account GDP with the variables sex and rurality on the centennial population, specifically in favour of the female centennial population and non-rural areas, at the regional and at the provincial level.

This study was the first step of further analysis related to extreme longevity in Spain, which will include other dependent variables such as state of health and well-being as well as social factors.