Social ojämlikhet och sjukdom i Göteborg

Abstract

Background: Socioeconomic status is a term used to describe an individual’s social and economic conditions, such as income, education level and profession status. Multiple diseases have shown a negative correlation with socioeconomic status, such as cardiovascular disease, depression, alcoholism and certain forms of cancer. Gothenburg is a city with growing inequality, and it stands to reason that this inequality could be reflected by variations in disease frequency between the city’s different primary areas. Aim: The aim of this study was to examine the frequencies of disease in Gothenburg’s different primary areas regarding several non-communicable diseases related to socioeconomic status and/or alcohol intake, as well as investigate the relationship between socioeconomic status and disease. Methods: The study was conducted at group level. All people aged 16—74 currently residing in Gothenburg were included. The diseases chosen for the study all had a connection with alcohol intake and/or social inequality, namely: alcohol use disorder, cardiovascular disease, liver disease, liver cancer, breast cancer, colorectal cancer and depression. Disease data were collected from the journal system of Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Melior. Data regarding population numbers, mean income and degree of education were collected from the Gothenburg City Council statistics database, freely available online. The data were then sorted by primary area code, and the correlation between socioeconomic variables and percentage of disease were analysed using the statistics software SPSS. Results: A majority of the included diseases were more frequent in primary areas of lower socioeconomic status, and showed statistically significant correlation, of varying degree, with area mean income and area percentage of people with higher education. Diseases showing a negative correlation with socioeconomic status included: alcohol use disorder, cardiovascular disease, depression, liver disease and liver cancer. Diseases showing a positive correlation with socioeconomic status were breast cancer and colorectal cancer. The included socioeconomic variables were calculated to account for between 7% and 44% of the variance shown. Conclusions and implications: There are significant differences in disease frequency between diifferent socioeconomic groups in Gothenburg. While this study cannot claim to show to any causal relationship between socioeconomic status and disease, it can show an unequal distribution of disease correlating to income and education, mirroring previous research on the subject. These results may be of interest to local authorities interested in taking targeted measures in order to achieve health equality in the population. Keywords: socioeconomic status, alcohol, non-communicable disease, epidemiology