Restructuring rural communities can be seen as natural population level experiments of great social epidemiological interest. Following the extensive decline in small-scale fishing in the later decades of the 20th century, many coastal communities have undergone considerable societal restructuring. In Norway, this has entailed a substantial reduction of the fishing workforce, concurrent with new employment opportunities in public sector and aquaculture. The former socialization into fishing from a young age is greatly reduced, with coastal youths now facing other life courses than preceding generations. As restructuring of societies is found to be intertwined with public health, coastal communities can provide valuable insights on public health during times of transitions. In this study, we use repeated cross-sectional population health data from rural Norwegian municipalities to assess the development of self-rated health over four decades in a coastal population who has undergone restructuring of local labour markets. We assess generational differences in health by comparing the prevalence of poor self-rated health at three ages reflecting three generations at each cross section: youths, adults and elderly. We compare results to adjacent geographical areas to assess geographical differences in self-rated health over time. We found a higher predicted prevalence of poor self-rated health in rural coastal adults and elderly compared to other geographical areas across all decades. However, trends revealed improving self-rated health in rural coastal adults and elderly, as well as narrowing health gaps between the rural coastal population and the remaining geographical areas in this Norwegian setting. Our results shed light on public health development in restructuring coastal communities.

重建农村社区可以被视为具有重大社会流行病学意义的自然人口水平实验。随着 20 世纪后期小规模渔业的大规模减少，许多沿海社区经历了相当大的社会重组。在挪威，这导致渔业劳动力大幅减少，同时公共部门和水产养殖业提供新的就业机会。以前从小就从事捕鱼的社会化大大减少，沿海青年现在面临着与前几代人不同的生活轨迹。由于发现社会重组与公共卫生交织在一起，沿海社区可以在转型时期提供有关公共卫生的宝贵见解。在这项研究中，我们使用来自挪威农村市镇的重复横断面人口健康数据来评估经过当地劳动力市场重组的沿海人口在过去四年中自评健康的发展情况。我们通过比较三个年龄段的自评健康不佳的流行率来评估健康的代际差异，这反映了每个横断面的三代人：青年、成人和老年人。我们将结果与相邻的地理区域进行比较，以评估自评健康随时间推移的地理差异。我们发现，在过去几十年中，与其他地理区域相比，沿海农村成年人和老年人的自评健康状况不佳的预测患病率更高。然而，趋势表明沿海农村成年人和老年人的自评健康状况有所改善，以及缩小农村沿海人口与挪威环境中其余地理区域之间的健康差距。我们的研究结果阐明了沿海社区重组中的公共卫生发展。