ArticleJournal of epidemiology and community health2018
Do socioeconomic inequalities in pain, psychological distress and oral health increase or decrease over the life course? Evidence from Sweden over 43 years of follow-up.
Article in Journal of epidemiology and community health, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Are Area-Level Socioeconomic Factors Associated with Dental Caries and Tooth Loss? A Systematic Review.Caries research · 2025Pooled it
- Socioeconomic Factors and Caries in People between 19 and 60 Years of Age: An Update of a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Observational Studies.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2018Pooled it
- Gender gap in tooth brushing among Korean adolescents.BMC oral health · 2025Article
- Social Determinants and Consequences of Pain: Toward Multilevel, Intersectional, and Life Course Perspectives.The journal of pain · 2024Review
- Impact of cancer diagnosis on life expectancy by area-level socioeconomic groups in New South Wales, Australia: a population-based study.Cancer biology & medicine · 2024Article
- Diabetes control in public assistance recipients and free/low-cost medical care program beneficiaries in Japan: a retrospective cross-sectional study.BMJ public health · 2024Article
- Life course socioeconomic status, chronic pain, and the mediating role of allostatic load: findings from the midlife in the United States.Frontiers in public health · 2024Article
- Perspectives on community-based system change for people living with persistent pain: insights from developing the "Rethinking Pain service".Frontiers in pain research (Lausanne, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- The pathways from disadvantaged socioeconomic status in childhood to edentulism in mid-to-late adulthood over the life-course.International journal for equity in health · 2023Article
- Wealth and depression: A scoping review.Brain and behavior · 2022Article
- Oral Health, Health Service Utilization, and Age at Arrival to the U.S. among Safety Net Patients.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- A biopsychosocial examination of chronic back pain, limitations on usual activities, and treatment in Brazil, 2019.PloS one · 2022Article
- Quantifying the population burden of musculoskeletal disorders, including impact on sickness absence: analysis of national Scottish data.Rheumatology advances in practice · 2022Article
- Pain rates in general population for the period 1991-2015 and 10-years prediction: results from a multi-continent age-period-cohort analysis.The journal of headache and pain · 2020Article
- Widespread and widely widening? Examining absolute socioeconomic health inequalities in northern Sweden across twelve health indicators.International journal for equity in health · 2019Article
- Review
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundInequalities over the life course may increase due to accumulation of disadvantage or may decrease because ageing can work as a leveller. We report how absolute and relative socioeconomic inequalities in musculoskeletal pain, oral health and psychological distress evolve with ageing.
methodsData were combined from two nationally representative Swedish panel studies: the Swedish Level-of-Living Survey and the Swedish Panel Study of Living Conditions of the Oldest Old. Individuals were followed up to 43 years in six waves (1968, 1974, 1981, 1991/1992, 2000/2002, 2010/2011) from five cohorts: 1906-1915 (n=899), 1925-1934 (n=906), 1944-1953 (n=1154), 1957-1966 (n=923) and 1970-1981 (n=1199). The participants were 15-62 years at baseline. Three self-reported outcomes were measured as dichotomous variables: teeth not in good conditions, psychological distress and musculoskeletal pain. The fixed-income groups were: (A) never poor and (B) poor at least once in life. The relationship between ageing and the outcomes was smoothed with locally weighted ordinary least squares, and the relative and absolute gaps were calculated with Poisson regression using generalised estimating equations.
resultsAll outcomes were associated with ageing, birth cohort, sex and being poor at least once in live. Absolute inequalities increased up to the age of 45-64 years, and then they decreased. Relative inequalities were large already in individuals aged 15-25 years, showing a declining trend over the life course. Selective mortality did not change the results. The socioeconomic gap was larger for current poverty than for being poor at least once in life.
conclusionInequalities persist into very old age, though they are more salient in midlife for all three outcomes observed.
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