Impact of socioeconomic status on cardiovascular disease and mortality in 24,947 individuals with type 1 diabetes

Abstract

OBJECTIVE Socioeconomic status (SES) is a powerful predictor of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and death. We examined the association in a large cohort of patients with type 1 diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Clinical data from the Swedish National Diabetes Register were linked to national registers, whereby information on income, education, marital status, country of birth, comorbidities, and events was obtained. Patients were followed until a first incident event, death, or end of follow-up. The association between socioeconomic variables and the outcomes was modeled using Cox regression, with rigorous covariate adjustment. RESULTS We included 24,947 patients. Mean (SD) age and follow-up was 39.1 (13.9) and 6.0 (1.0) years. Death and fatal/nonfatal CVD occurred in 926 and 1378 individuals. Compared with being single, being married was associated with 50% lower risk of death, cardiovascular (CV) death, and diabetes-related death. Individuals in the two lowest quintiles had twice as great a risk of fatal/nonfatal CVD, coronary heart disease, and stroke and roughly three times as great a risk of death, diabetesrelated death, and CV death as individuals in the highest income quintile. Compared with having ≤9 years of education, individuals with a college/university degree had 33% lower risk of fatal/nonfatal stroke. Immigrants had 19%, 33%, and 45% lower risk of fatal/nonfatal CVD, all-cause death, and diabetes-related death, respectively, compared with Swedes. Men had 44%, 63%, and 29% greater risk of all-cause death, CV death, and diabetes-related death. CONCLUSIONS Low SES increases the risk of CVD and death by a factor of 2-3 in type 1 diabetes.