Journal of Epidemiology

Journal of Epidemiology

Volume 27, Issue 8, August 2017, Pages 381-388
Journal of Epidemiology

Original Article
Cross-level interaction between individual socioeconomic status and regional deprivation on overall survival after onset of ischemic stroke: National health insurance cohort sample data from 2002 to 2013

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.je.2016.08.020Get rights and content
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open access

Highlights

  • Regional socioeconomic status (SES) may differently affect mortality by income.

  • Impact of area SES on morality among cerebrovascular patients was evaluated.

  • Among middle-income patients, poor SES area is associated with poor mortality.

  • Poor SES area is associated with better mortality among low-income patients.

Abstract

Introduction

The literature on stroke mortality and neighborhood effect is characterized by studies that are often Western society-oriented, with a lack of racial and cultural diversity. We estimated the effect of cross-level interaction between individual and regional socioeconomic status on the survival after onset of ischemic stroke.

Methods

We selected newly diagnosed ischemic stroke patients from 2002 to 2013 using stratified representative sampling data of 1,025,340 subjects. A total of 37,044 patients over the 10 years from 2004 to 2013 had newly diagnosed stroke. We calculated hazard ratios (HR) of 12- and 36-month mortality using the Cox proportional hazard model, with the reference group as stroke patients with high income in advantaged regions.

Results

For the middle income level, the patients in advantaged regions showed low HRs for overall mortality (12-month HR 1.27; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.13–1.44; 36-month HR 1.25; 95% CI, 1.14–1.37) compared to the others in disadvantaged regions (12-month HR 1.36; 95% CI, 1.19–1.56; 36-month HR 1.30; 95% CI, 1.17–1.44). Interestingly, for the low income level, the patients in advantaged regions showed high HRs for overall mortality (12-month HR 1.27; 95% CI, 1.13–1.44; 36-month HR 1.33; 95% CI, 1.22–1.46) compared to the others in disadvantaged regions (12-month HR 1.25; 95% CI, 1.09–1.43; 36-month HR 1.30; 95% CI, 1.18–1.44).

Conclusion

Although we need to perform further investigations to determine the exact mechanisms, regional deprivation, as well as medical factors, might be associated with survival after onset of ischemic stroke in low-income patients.

Keywords

Stroke
Mortality
Regional deprivation
Socioeconomic status

Cited by (0)

Peer review under responsibility of the Japan Epidemiological Association.

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Jaeyong Shin and Young Choi are co-first authors.