Educational Level Inequalities in Cardiovascular Outcomes and All-Cause Mortality in Turkey: A Cohort

Abstract

Abstract Background Recent decades witnessed an increase in the burden of non-communicable diseases including adverse cardiovascular outcomes in low- and middle income countries and the burden was not equal across socioeconomic strata. This study aimed to define educational level inequalities in cardiovascular outcomes and all-cause mortality in a six-years cohort in Turkey. Methods Non-communicable Diseases and Risk Factors Cohort randomly sampled two adults (>14) from each of the registered family physicians in Turkey in July 2011 (n = 18,477). The family physicians collected demographic data. Incident coronary heart disease (CHD), cardiovascular and all-cause deaths were obtained from electronic health records in the end of 2017. Ridit score transformation was applied to the educational level by gender (illiterate, primary school, secondary school, high school or higher) and then Relative Index of Inequalities by educational level were estimated using Poisson Regression for morbidity and Cox Regression for mortality. Results There were 17,847 participants in CHD and 18,461 in the mortality cohort. During six-years 1,026 cases were diagnosed with CHD, 185 cardiovascular and 769 all-cause deaths occurred respectively. The inequalities were not significant for all outcomes however Relative Index of Inequalities were close to be significant for CHD incidence among men and all-cause mortality among women (0.721 (0.507 to 1.025) and 1.721 (0.969 to 3.057), respectively). Conclusions This is the first-ever cohort in Turkey with the aim to define educational level inequalities in cardiovascular outcomes and all-cause mortality. The inequalities may not have been observed due to the low number of outcomes. Key messages In Turkey, there were no educational level inequalities in our cohort. The possible inverse inequalities among men and inequalities among women may arise with a longer follow up.