Occupational class and educational level inequalities in major cardiovascular risk factors in Turkey: 2008-2016

We aimed to investigate the magnitude of occupational class (OC) and educational level (EL) inequalities in cardiovascular risk factors in Turkey from 2008 to 2016 and compare these inequalities with neighbouring European countries.

We used the Turkey Health Survey among a representative sample of the Turkish population. We estimated relative index of inequality (RII) for four cardiovascular risk factors (obesity/overweight, hypertension, diabetes, smoking) by OC/EL with an interaction term for survey year and compared selected results with neighbouring countries.

Men with lower OC and EL smoked more (e.g. RII for EL = 1.40 [1.26-1.55]); however, the remaining risk factors were mostly lower in these groups. Women in lower socio-economic groups smoked less (e.g. RII for EL = 0.36 [0.29-0.44]), however, had higher prevalence of the remaining risk factors. Significant interactions with survey year were only found in a few cases. The pattern of inequalities in Turkey is largely similar to neighbouring countries.

Inequalities in cardiovascular risk factors are less systematic in Turkey than in most high-income countries, but ongoing trends suggest that this may change in the future.