A multilevel analysis of income inequality and cardiovascular disease risk factors

Ana V. Diez-Roux, Bruce G. Link and Mary E. Northridge

Social Science & Medicine, 2000, vol. 50, issue 5, 673-687

Abstract: Recent research has suggested that inequality in the distribution of income is associated with increased mortality, even after accounting for average income levels. Using data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), we investigated whether inequality in the distribution of income within US states is related to the prevalence of four cardiovascular disease risk factors (body mass index (BMI), history of hypertension, sedentarism, and smoking). Multilevel models (including both state-level and individual-level variables) were used to examine associations of state inequality with risk factor levels before and after adjustment for individual-level income. For three of the four risk factors investigated (BMI, hypertension, and sedentarism), state inequality was associated with increased risk factor levels, particularly at low income levels (annual household incomes

Keywords: Income; inequality; Cardiovascular; diseases; Cardiovascular; risk; factors; Socioeconomic; factors (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2000
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (39)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(99)00320-2
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:socmed:v:50:y:2000:i:5:p:673-687

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
http://www.elsevier. ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

Access Statistics for this article

Social Science & Medicine is currently edited by Ichiro (I.) Kawachi and S.V. (S.V.) Subramanian

More articles in Social Science & Medicine from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().