| 1. |
- Corsi, D. J., et al.
(författare)
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Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology (PURE) study: Baseline characteristics of the household sample and comparative analyses with national data in 17 countries
- 2013
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Ingår i: American Heart Journal. - : Elsevier BV. - 0002-8703 .- 1097-6744. ; 166:4
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BACKGROUND: The PURE study was established to investigate associations between social, behavioural, genetic, and environmental factors and cardiovascular diseases in 17 countries. In this analysis we compare the age, sex, urban/rural, mortality, and educational profiles of the PURE participants to national statistics. METHODS: PURE employed a community-based sampling and recruitment strategy where urban and rural communities were selected within countries. Within communities, representative samples of adults aged 35 to 70 years and their household members (n = 424,921) were invited for participation. RESULTS: The PURE household population compared to national statistics had more women (sex ratio 95.1 men per 100 women vs 100.3) and was older (33.1 years vs 27.3), although age had a positive linear relationship between the two data sources (Pearson's r = 0.92). PURE was 59.3% urban compared to an average of 63.1% in participating countries. The distribution of education was less than 7% different for each category, although PURE households typically had higher levels of education. For example, 37.8% of PURE household members had completed secondary education compared to 31.3% in the national data. Age-adjusted annual mortality rates showed positive correlation for men (r = 0.91) and women (r = 0.92) but were lower in PURE compared to national statistics (7.9 per 1000 vs 8.7 for men; 6.7 vs 8.1 for women). CONCLUSIONS: These findings indicate that modest differences exist between the PURE household population and national data for the indicators studied. These differences, however, are unlikely to have much influence on exposure-disease associations derived in PURE. Further, incidence estimates from PURE, stratified according to sex and/or urban/rural location will enable valid comparisons of the relative rates of various cardiovascular outcomes across countries.
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| 2. |
- Lynch, Kristian, et al.
(författare)
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Context and disease when disease risk is low: the case of type 1 diabetes in Sweden
- 2010
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Ingår i: Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. - : BMJ. - 1470-2738 .- 0143-005X. ; 64:9, s. 789-795
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background Several European studies have found significant small area variation in the risk of childhood onset (type 1) diabetes (T1D) which has been interpreted as evidence for contextual determinants of T1D. However, this conclusion may be fallacious since the limited number of newborn infants and the low risk for T1D is a source of spurious variability not properly handled by usual statistical methods. This study investigates the existence of contextual effects in the genesis of T1D, compares conclusions in previous reports with results obtained in a multilevel regression framework and highlights analysis of variance as a useful approach in public health. Methods All singletons born in Sweden between 1987 and 1991 were identified in the Medical Birth Registry (n=560 766) and followed for diabetes until age 14 using the Hospital Discharge Registry. Area variation in the cumulative incidence of T1D was estimated by different statistical methods including multilevel logistic regression. Results The risk of T1D ranged from 4.3 to 6.5 per 1000 newborns across the counties (n=24) and from 0.0 to 19.2 per 1000 newborns across the municipalities (n=284). These differences were significant in standard statistical tests (counties, p=0.02; municipalities, p=0.007). However, according to multilevel analyses, the risk of T1D ranged from 4.7 to 5.7 and from 4.4 to 6.0 per 1000 newborns in counties and municipalities, respectively, and the area variation was small and without practical relevance (counties, sigma(2)=0.006; municipalities, sigma(2)=0.017). Conclusions Previous reports based on standard statistical tests are misleading. According to multilevel analysis, administrative areas have minor relevance for individual risk of T1D in Sweden.
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| 3. |
- Malmberg, Bo, et al.
(författare)
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Links between ill health and regional economic performance : Evidence from Swedish longitudinal data
- 2010
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Ingår i: Environment and planning A. - : SAGE Publications. - 0308-518X .- 1472-3409. ; 42:5, s. 1210-1220
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- While poor health has been associated with economic outcomes at the national level, its effect on economic outcomes at the individual and local level remains less well known. Using nationally representative longitudinal data from Sweden, we examined the extent to which an individual’s poor health leads to poor economic outcomes for that individual. In order to understand the effects of poor health at a regional level, we also examined the spillover effects of the individual’s poor health on the economic outcomes of the people linked to the individual. We report an association between an individual’s poor health and both that individual’s subsequent adverse economic outcomes and adverse economic outcomes of the individual’s network. Our study highlights the importance of the association between health and economic well-being as well as potential adverse spillover effects of poor health on local economies.
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| 4. |
- Merlo, Juan, et al.
(författare)
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Revisiting causal neighborhood effects on individual ischemic heart disease risk: A quasi-experimental multilevel analysis among Swedish siblings.
- 2013
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Ingår i: Social Science and Medicine. - : Elsevier BV. - 1873-5347 .- 0277-9536. ; 76, s. 39-46
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage is associated to increased individual risk of ischemic heart disease (IHD). However, the value of this association for causal inference is uncertain. Moreover, neighborhoods are often defined by available administrative boundaries without evaluating in which degree these boundaries embrace a relevant socio-geographical context that condition individual differences in IHD risk. Therefore, we performed an analysis of variance, and also compared the associations obtained by conventional multilevel analyses and by quasi-experimental family-based design that provides stronger evidence for causal inference. Linking the Swedish Multi-Generation Register to several other national registers, we analyzed 184,931 families embracing 415,540 full brothers 45-64 years old in 2004, and residing in 8408 small-area market statistics (SAMS) considered as "neighborhoods" in our study. We investigated the association between low neighborhood income (categorized in groups by deciles) and IHD risk in the next four years. We distinguished between family mean and intrafamilial-centered low neighborhood income, which allowed us to investigate both unrelated individuals from different families and full brothers within families. We applied multilevel logistic regression techniques to obtain odds ratios (OR), variance partition coefficients (VPC) and 95% credible intervals (CI). In unrelated individuals a decile unit increase of low neighborhood income increased individual IHD risk (OR = 1.04, 95% CI: 1.03-1.07). In the intrafamilial analysis this association was reduced (OR = 1.02, 95% CI: 1.02-1.04). Low neighborhood income seems associated with IHD risk in middle-aged men. However, despite the family-based design, we cannot exclude residual confounding by genetic and non-shared environmental factors. Besides, the low neighborhood level VPC = 1.5% suggest that the SAMS are a rather inappropriate construct of the socio-geographic context that conditions individual variance in IHD risk. In contrast the high family level VPC = 20.1% confirms the relevance of the family context for understanding IHD risk.
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| 5. |
- Zuberbier, T., et al.
(författare)
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Economic burden of inadequate management of allergic diseases in the European Union: a GA(2)LEN review
- 2014
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Ingår i: Allergy. - : Wiley. - 0105-4538. ; 69:10, s. 1275-1279
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BackgroundIn the European Union (EU), between 44 and 76 million individuals of the 217 million EU employees suffer from allergic disease of the airways or the skin. Up to 90% of these persons are untreated or insufficiently treated. This has major socio-economic consequences such as absence from work (absenteeism), particularly reduced productivity at work (presenteeism). MethodsWe used published literature and online statistical information from Eurostat and Eurofound to assess the costs of allergic disease to society. ResultsAllergies have an impact on direct, indirect, intangible and opportunity costs. Most importantly, for the EU, avoidable indirect costs per patient insufficiently treated for allergy range between Euro55 and Euro151 billion per annum due to absenteeism and presenteeism, that is, Euro2405 per untreated patient per year. On the other hand, appropriate therapy for allergic diseases is available at comparatively low costs at an average of Euro125 per patient annually, equalling only 5% of the costs of untreated disease, allowing potential savings of up to Euro142 billion. ConclusionsA better care for allergies based on guideline-based treatment would allow Europe's economy substantial savings. In addition, allergies have an impact on learning and performance at school and university, leading to opportunity costs for society. This cannot be calculated moneywise but will have an impact in a modern knowledge-based society. Still allergies are trivialized in society, noting that the costs of therapy are paid by patients and healthcare services, whereas economic savings are made by employers and society. A change of this mindset is urgently needed.
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