Social gradients in cardiovascular risk factors and symptoms

Background Even though coronary mortality in middle and old age is decreasing, social gradients may be increasing; but they need not necessarily be the same for men and women. In order to develop efficient preventive strategies more knowledge of the current distributions of risk factors both for men and for Women is needed. Objective To investigate and to compare the socio-economic gradients for coronary risk factors of men and women. Design A cross-sectional study. Methods We studied 686 men and 825 women aged 25-64 years from a random population sample. Socio-economic status (SES) was classified according to the occupation-based Swedish Socio-economic Index. Results For women, high SES was associated with lower levels of total and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, lowe