Socioeconomic status and incident type 2 diabetes mellitus: data from the Women's Health Study. Academic Article uri icon

Overview

abstract

  • OBJECTIVES: We prospectively examined whether socioeconomic status (SES) predicts incident type II diabetes (diabetes), a cardiovascular risk equivalent and burgeoning public health epidemic among women. METHODS: Participants include 23,992 women with Hb(A1c) levels <6% and no CVD or diabetes at baseline followed from February 1993 to March 2007. SES was measured by education and income while diabetes was self-reported. RESULTS: Over 12.3 years of follow-up, 1,262 women developed diabetes. In age and race adjusted models, the relative risk of diabetes decreased with increasing education (<2 years of nursing, 2 to <4 years of nursing, bachelor's degree, master's degree, and doctorate: 1.0, 0.7 [95% Confidence Interval (CI), 0.6-0.8], 0.6 (95% CI, 0.5-0.7), 0.5 (95% CI, 0.4-0.6), 0.4 (95% CI, 0.3-0.5); p(trend)<0.001). Adjustment for traditional and non-traditional cardiovascular risk factors attenuated this relationship (education: p(trend) = 0.96). Similar associations were observed between income categories and diabetes. CONCLUSION: Advanced education and increasing income were both inversely associated with incident diabetes even in this relatively well-educated cohort. This relationship was largely explained by behavioral factors, particularly body mass index.

publication date

  • December 14, 2011

Research

keywords

  • Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2
  • Social Class
  • Statistics as Topic
  • Women's Health

Identity

PubMed Central ID

  • PMC3237410

Scopus Document Identifier

  • 83355173008

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

  • 10.1371/journal.pone.0027670

PubMed ID

  • 22194788

Additional Document Info

volume

  • 6

issue

  • 12