BACKGROUND Adult socioeconomic status (SES) is an independent risk factor for the development of coronary heart disease (CHD), but whether low childhood SES has an effect in adults who have achieved high SES is unknown. METHODS We examined the risk of CHD and mortality associated with low childhood SES in 1131 male medical students from The Johns Hopkins Precursors Study, a prospective cohort...

BACKGROUND The environment can moderate the effect of genes - a phenomenon called gene-environment (GxE) interaction. Several studies have found that socioeconomic status (SES) modifies the heritability of children's intelligence. Among low-SES families, genetic factors have been reported to explain less of the variance in intelligence; the reverse is found for high-SES families. The evidence h...

BACKGROUND The relationship between body mass index (BMI) and socioeconomic status (SES) tends to change over time and across populations. In this study, we examined, separately in men and women, whether the association between BMI and SES changed over successive birth cohorts in the Seychelles (Indian Ocean, African region). METHODS We used data from all participants in three surveys conduct...

BACKGROUND People need basic data interpretation skills to understand health risks and to weigh the harms and benefits of actions meant to reduce those risks. Although many studies document problems with understanding risk information, few assess ways to teach interpretation skills. OBJECTIVE To see whether a general education primer improves patients' medical data interpretation skills. DE...

OBJECTIVE The prevalence of overweight and obesity is growing in children in many developing countries, increasing chronic disease risk. Our objective was to assess the prevalence of stunting, underweight, overweight, and obesity in schoolchildren 8 to 10 years old who were of high or low socioeconomic status (SES) in Quetzaltenango, which is the second largest city in Guatemala. METHODS Betw...

BACKGROUND Sedentary behavior is considered a separate construct from physical activity and engaging in sedentary behaviors results in health effects independent of physical activity levels. A major source of sedentary behavior in children is time spent viewing TV or movies, playing video games, and using computers. To date no study has examined the impact of neighborhood socioeconomic status (...

BACKGROUND Socioeconomic status (SES) can greatly affect the clinical outcome of medical problems. We sought to assess the in-hospital mortality of patients with the acute coronary syndrome (ACS) according to their SES. METHODS All patients admitted to Tehran Heart Center due to 1(st)-time ACS between March 2004 and August 2011 were assessed. The patients who were illiterate/lowly educated (≤...

Little is understood about why some youth from low-socioeconomic-status (SES) environments exhibit good health despite adversity. This study tested whether role models and "shift-and-persist" approaches (reframing stressors more benignly while persisting with future optimism) protect low-SES youth from cardiovascular risk. A total of 163 youth, ages 13-16, completed role model interviews and sh...

BACKGROUND There are conflicting findings regarding the relationship between socio-economic status (SES) and bone mineral density. We aimed to investigate bone status and its possible determinants by comparing students from two schools, located in a high and a low SES district. METHODS Data were gathered by using anthropometric measurements and a questionnaire for both families and the studen...

OBJECTIVES To assess the nutrition knowledge levels and dietary intake pattern of schoolchildren belonging to two groups of different socio-economic status (SES; high income/high SES and low income/low SES). DESIGN A purposive sampling method was employed. A validated food-frequency questionnaire was administered to assess the dietary intake of schoolchildren in four schools from two differen...