Social class and ischaemic heart disease: use of the male:female ratio to identify possible occupational hazards
Heller, R.F.; Williams, H.; Sittampalam, Y.
Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 38(3): 198-202
1984
ISSN/ISBN: 0143-005X PMID: 6470595 DOI: 10.1136/jech.38.3.198Document Number: 408206
In England and Wales [UK] there has been an increasing excess of ischemic heart disease death rates among men and women of social classes 4 and 5 compared with those in classes 1 and 2 and this excess was greater in young adults. The male excess over women in IHD death rates was greater in social classes 1 and 2 than in classes 4 and 5. Although men in professional occupations were at low risk for IHD compared with men in other occupations, women married to professional men were at an even lower risk compared with other women. Also, women married to men in unskilled occupations had relatively higher IHD rates than their husbands. These patterns were not seen for all causes, cerebrovascular disease, chronic bronchitis, or stomach cancer, where the social class mortality gradients were similar in men and women. There may have been factors associated with professional opccupations that increased have been the risk of IHD despite the relatively low death rates of men engaged in them. In addition there may have been factors operating in women in social classes 4 and 5 that put them at a high risk for the development of IHD.