Myocardial infarction events and cardiovascular risk factor levels in Finnish- and Swedish-speaking populations of Finland.
BACKGROUND. The Swedish-speaking minority of Finland is unique, because it has a higher socioeconomic status (SES) and longer life expectancy than the Finnish-speaking majority. We hypothesized that this minority may have a lower attack rate of coronary events and analysed whether this could be explained by their higher SES. METHODS. The population-based myocardial infarction (MI) registers recorded 4,845 MI events in Turku during 1988-1998. Individual-level indicators of SES were obtained from Statistics Finland. The population-based FINRISK surveys recorded cardiovascular risk factors and native languages of 10,432 people in 1987, 1997, and 2002. RESULTS. The age-standardized attack rate of MI was lower among the 35-64-year-old Swedish-speaking men than among Finnish-speaking men (rate ratio 0.66; 95% confidence interval 0.47-0.85) and the difference remained significant after adjustment for SES. The Swedish-speaking inhabitants had higher age-, sex-, and SES-adjusted high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and lower triglycerides, body mass index, and diastolic blood pressure. Conclusion. The Swedish-speaking inhabitants of Turku had lower MI morbidity and coronary mortality than the Finnish-speaking inhabitants. After controlling for SES, these differences remained significant among men, suggesting that other factors, such as differences in the risk factor profiles may also play a role.
Turku University Hospital, Finland. aklamm@utu.fi
Aino
A
Lammintausta
Pirjo
P
Immonen-Räihä
Aapo
A
Lehtonen
Ismo
I
Räihä
Kennet
K
Harald
Jorma
J
Torppa
Juhani K E
JK
Airaksinen
Veikko
V
Salomaa
D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001794:Blood Pressure; D015992:Body Mass Index; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology; D008076:Cholesterol, HDL / Q000097:blood; D005260:Female; D005387:Finland / Q000453:epidemiology; D006306:Health Surveys / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009203:Myocardial Infarction / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology; D012042:Registries; D012307:Risk Factors; D012737:Sex Factors; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014280:Triglycerides / Q000097:blood
D008076:Cholesterol, HDL; D014280:Triglycerides