title: To what extent can deprivation inequalities in mortality and heart disease incidence amongst the working aged in Scotland be explained by smoking? Relative and absolute approaches.
abstract: Smoking is important for both population health and inequalities in health. There is a growing recognition that its impact on inequalities can be assessed both by standardising smoking rates across socio-economic groups and by assessing the effect of reducing the prevalence of smoking in all groups, so-called relative and absolute approaches. While national level studies (such as census-linkage studies) give vital information on the socio-economic gradient in health they often lack smoking data. Here, small area smoking estimates are linked to a national level longitudinal study to overcome this problem. Results confirm that in relative and especially absolute terms smoking plays an important role in inequalities.
authors.affiliation: School of Geography and Geosciences, University of St Andrews, St Andrews KY16 9AL, UK. f.popham@st-andrews.ac.uk
authors.forename: Frank
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Popham
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D054624:Health Status Disparities; D006331:Heart Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009026:Mortality / Q000639:trends*; D011204:Poverty Areas; D012606:Scotland / Q000453:epidemiology; D012907:Smoking / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000453:epidemiology; D012923:Social Class