Socioeconomic inequalities in coronary heart disease in Italy: A multilevel population-based study

Do socioeconomic disparities affect accessing and keeping antihypertensive drug therapy? Evidence from an Italian population-based study

“…Mean age (s.d.) at entry was 63 years (10). Initial treatment mainly consisted of monotherapy (82%), mostly with angiotensine converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors (27%), diuretics (16%), b-blockers (15%) and calcium channel blockers (14%).…”

“…Despite the fact that the Italian National Health Service (NHS) provides universal coverage for health care, including drug treatment for hypertension, socioeconomic disparities in the occurrence of coronary heart disease still persist. 10 The purpose of this study was to explore whether socioeconomic factors such as income, ethnicity and household composition (that is, living or not living alone) are associated with access to and stay on antihypertensive drug treatment in an unselected urban population, using the health service database of the Italian Lombardia region. Strengths of the study are (1) the extremely large size of the database, (2) the natural setting from which the data were obtained and (3) the homogeneity of the health care system, which in Italy is entirely public.…”

Childhood socioeconomic status, adult socioeconomic status, and old-age health trajectories

“…In an attempt to explain these divergent trends, research has focused on pathways that account for persistence in and expansion of health inequalities. Some of these include mediators such as stress, social support, and preventive as well as risk behaviors (Engdahl and Tambs 2010;House et al 1990;Marmot and Siegrist 2004;Petrelli et al 2006;Tang, Chen, and Krewski 2003). Some research suggests pathways can operate from early life onward, implicating both childhood and adult SES as determinants of health in old age (Elo and Preston 1997;Galobardes, Lynch, and Davey Smith 2004;Galobardes, Lynch, and Smith 2008;Galobardes, Smith, and Lynch 2006;Hayward and Gorman 2004;Luo and Waite 2005;Preston, Hill, and Drevenstedt 1998;Smith and Hanson Forthcoming).…”

Trends in Socioeconomic Inequalities in Ischemic Heart Disease Mortality in Small Areas of Nine Spanish Cities from 1996 to 2007 Using Smoothed ANOVA

“…may have a relationship with IHD mortality, independently of the individual characteristics of the deceased. 3,[14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] In western European countries, specifically in Spain, a clear decline in IHD mortality has been observed in recent decades. 2,23 This decline is mainly attributed to reductions in the majority of risk factors, such as smoking, hypertension, and hypercholesterolemia, as well as improvements in medical diagnosis and treatment.…”