title: The association of education with coronary heart disease mortality in the USSR Lipid Research Clinics Study.
abstract: There is a strong inverse association between educational attainment and coronary heart disease (CHD) mortality in men in the USSR Lipid Research Clinics (LRC) Study. Less educated men were characterized by higher mean blood pressure, high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), cigarettes smoked and by lower mean low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) and body mass index (BMI). With respect to nutritional variables, less educated men were characterized by higher mean energy per kg body weight and alcohol intake and by lower mean intake of fat, saturated, mono- and polyunsaturated fatty acids, cholesterol, sucrose, and other sugars. The Keys score closely predicted the differences in plasma cholesterol among the educational groups in the randomly selected sample. In men without CHD at entry, the age and clinic-adjusted relative risk for CHD mortality was 2.4 for the least educated compared with the most educated group; on adjusting for systolic blood pressure, HDL-C, LDL-C, BMI, alcohol intake and number of cigarettes, the relative risk was reduced to 1.9. These data indicate that only 22% of the twofold excess of CHD mortality associated with low education was statistically attributable to the major risk factors. The failure to explain more of the education-CHD mortality gradient in the USSR LRC cohort was similar to observations from cohort studies in Great Britain and the US. Other correlates of low education must be explored to explain the association.
authors.affiliation: Department of Nutrition, School of Public Health, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill 27514.
authors.forename: B H
authors.initials: BH
authors.lastname: Dennis
authors.forename: G S
authors.initials: GS
authors.lastname: Zhukovsky
authors.forename: D B
authors.initials: DB
authors.lastname: Shestov
authors.forename: C E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Davis
authors.forename: A D
authors.initials: AD
authors.lastname: Deev
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: H A
authors.initials: HA
authors.lastname: Tyroler
mesh_terms: D015992:Body Mass Index; D003327:Coronary Disease / Q000401:mortality*; D004032:Diet; D004522:Educational Status; D015438:Health Behavior; D006801:Humans; D008019:Life Style; D008055:Lipids / Q000097:blood; D008297:Male; D012307:Risk Factors; D012907:Smoking; D014586:USSR / Q000453:epidemiology
chemical_list: D008055:Lipids