caa a22 4500 397516614 CHVBK 20180308164620.0 cr unu---uuuuu 161202s1995 xx s 000 0 eng 10.1093/eurpub/5.2.103 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)oxford-10.1093/eurpub/5.2.103 Social class and cardiovascular disease risk factor changes in West Germany 1984-1991 [Elektronische Daten] [UWE HELMERT, STEVEN SHEA, ULRIKE MASCHEWSKY-SCHNEIDER] The aim was to investigate whether the associations between social class and cardiovascular disease risk factors have changed over time in West Germany. Data from the first, second and third cross-sectional, independent and representative German National Health Surveys were analysed. Eligible survey candidates were males and females with German nationality aged 25-69 years. Survey 1 was carried out in 1984-1986 (n=4, 790, response rate = 66.0%), survey 2 in 1987-1988 (n=5, 335, response rate = 71.4%) and survey 3 in 1990-1991 (n=5, 311, response rate = 69.0%). Social class was assessed using an additive index comprising income, education and occupational status. Risk factors were measured by a self-administered questionnaire and clinical examination, in particular, the prevalence of current smoking, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia and obesity and levels of systolic blood pressure, serum cholesterol, body mass index and overall estimated cardiovascular risk. Risk factor prevalence did not change significantly between 1984 and 1991, with the exceptions of obesity in females and hypercholesterolemia in males, which both increased. The overall estimated cardiovascular risk and prevalence of all risk factors, with the exception of hypercholesterolemia, was greater in the lower social classes. Social class gradients increased between 1984 and 1991 for cigarette smoking in females, hypertension in men and overall cardiovascular risk in females. In conclusion, we found that despite the highly developed medical care system in West Germany, in the absence of an organized health education programme no progress was made in the period from 1984 to 1991 in lowering cardiovascular disease risk factors or in reducing the substantial social class gradient for cardiovascular risk. © European Journal of Public Health ORIGINAL ARTICLES ON OTHER TOPICS nationallicence cardiovascular risk factors nationallicence social inequity nationallicence cross-sectional survey nationallicence Germany nationallicence HELMERT UWE Division of Epidemiology, Bremen Institute for Prevention Research and Social Medicine (BIPS) Bremen, Germany aut SHEA STEVEN Division of General Medicine, Department of Medicine, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, and Division of Epidemiology, Columbia University School of Public Health New York, USA aut MASCHEWSKY-SCHNEIDER ULRIKE Division of Epidemiology, Bremen Institute for Prevention Research and Social Medicine (BIPS) Bremen, Germany aut The European Journal of Public Health Oxford University Press 5/2(1995), 103-108 1101-1262 5:2<103 1995 5 eurpub https://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/5.2.103 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/5.2.103 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- HELMERT UWE Division of Epidemiology, Bremen Institute for Prevention Research and Social Medicine (BIPS) Bremen, Germany aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- SHEA STEVEN Division of General Medicine, Department of Medicine, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, and Division of Epidemiology, Columbia University School of Public Health New York, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- MASCHEWSKY-SCHNEIDER ULRIKE Division of Epidemiology, Bremen Institute for Prevention Research and Social Medicine (BIPS) Bremen, Germany aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- The European Journal of Public Health Oxford University Press 5/2(1995), 103-108 1101-1262 5:2<103 1995 5 eurpub Metadata rights reserved CC BY-NC-4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0 nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-oxford