Wealth and Health

Wealth brings with it many privileges and, according to a new public health study, one of them is a greater likelihood of heart disease for lower classes.

The findings come from Norway, where a research team led by Eirik Degerud from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health found that very frequent alcohol consumption (4-7x per week) was linked to increased risk of death from heart disease — but only for the lowest socio-economic classes.

The data showed that study participants from the lower classes drank less, and were more likely to not drink at all, than those in middle or high socioeconomic classes. Despite this, they still experienced more alcohol-related hospitalizations and deaths. 

This isn’t the first time that scientists have looked at the links between heart disease and class. Previous studies have found that the more socioeconomic disadvantages experienced, the higher the likelihood of death from heart disease.

The data also showed that people in lower socioeconomic positions were typically older, more likely to be female, more likely to have other diseases and risk factors for heart disease. Meanwhile, those higher on the socioeconomic totem pole had the lowest prevalence of risk factors for heart disease, drank more frequently, and were more likely to binge drink.

The study, analyzed the socioeconomics, health, and cause of death data of 207,394 Norwegian adults born before October 15, 1960 that completed mandatory censuses between 1960 and 1990. While the study focused on Norway, the results would be even more “dramatic in other countries where the socio-economic differences are larger.” Norway is consistently ranked in the top five most equal places in the world. The United States, meanwhile, was recently ranked as the 23rd out of 30 developed nations for inequality.