The Association Between Socioeconomic Status and Cardiovascular Risk Factors Among Middle-Aged and Older Men and Women

Studies of gender differences in the association between socioeconomic status (SES) and cardiovascular risk factors have produced mixed findings. The purpose of this research was to examine whether the association between SES and cardiovascular risk factors differed between older men and women. Usin...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Women & health 2014-01, Vol.54 (1), p.15-34
Main Authors: Jenkins, Kristi Rahrig, Ofstedal, Mary Beth
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
age
Age Factors
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Biomarkers - blood
Blood Pressure
Body Mass Index
Cardiovascular disease
Cardiovascular Diseases - blood
Cardiovascular Diseases - epidemiology
Cholesterol - blood
Cross-Sectional Studies
CVD
Elderly
Female
Females
Gender differences
Glycated Hemoglobin - analysis
Health Behavior
Heart Diseases
Humans
Incidence
Intervention
Logistic Models
Male
Middle age
Middle Aged
Middle Aged Adults
Multivariate Analysis
Older people
Quality of life
Regression Analysis
Risk
Risk Factors
Sex Differences
Socioeconomic Factors
Socioeconomic Status
United States - epidemiology
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Studies of gender differences in the association between socioeconomic status (SES) and cardiovascular risk factors have produced mixed findings. The purpose of this research was to examine whether the association between SES and cardiovascular risk factors differed between older men and women. Using data on physical measures and biomarkers from the 2006 Health and Retirement Study (N = 2,502 men; N = 3,474 women), linear regression models were used to estimate the association between SES and seven cardiovascular risk factors. Interactions between gender and SES were tested. For all seven risks assessed, we observed significant associations of selected SES factors to cardiovascular risk for men and/or women. In all of these cases, lower SES was associated with higher cardiovascular risk. However, for six of the factors, we also observed gender differences in the association between SES and cardiovascular risk, such that lower SES was associated with higher cardiovascular risk for women but not for men. These findings suggest that the association between SES and cardiovascular risk is more pronounced for women than for men. Implementing interventions to reduce cardiovascular risk factors, particularly among older women with lower SES, might, over time, reduce cardiovascular disease in women and improve quality of life.
ISSN:0363-0242
1541-0331
1541-0331
DOI:10.1080/03630242.2013.858098