Key result
Favourable socio-economic status was associated with a lower frequency of historical vascular complications among 6051 FIELD trial participants, but not with on-trial complications over 5 years.
Why the study?
Socio-economic status is strongly associated with health outcomes, yet it remains relatively difficult to measure, especially for longitudinal comparisons.
Observational (n=6,051)
A newly developed postcode-based SES assessment tool demonstrated that favorable SES correlates with fewer historical vascular complications in an Australian trial cohort.
SES links to fewer historical vascular events but not on-trial complications; leaves open postcode tool utility for prospective risk prediction.
BACKGROUND: Socio-economic status (SES) is strongly associated with health outcomes, yet it remains relatively difficult to measure, particularly for longitudinal comparisons. AIM: We have developed an interactive online tool (available at bit.ly/SEIFA-POA) that facilitates SES assessment based on postcodes (POA). METHODS: By utilising percentiles of socio-economic indices for areas (SEIFA) derived from postcode-based rankings across Australia, this tool enables comparisons of SEIFA indices provided by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) censuses from 1986 through to 2021. A percentile-based methodology preserves the relative socio-economic position of areas over time, thereby circumventing the methodological inconsistencies inherent in SEIFA calculations across different census periods. The tool simplifies SES assessment, offering researchers and policymakers a practical solution for both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies. RESULTS: In 6051 participants of the Fenofibrate Intervention and Event Lowering in Diabetes (FIELD) trial from Australia, we demonstrated that favourable SES is associated with a lower frequency of vascular complications in the participants' medical history. The absence of an observed association between SES and on-trial complications may be attributed to the relatively short 5-year average time horizon of the analysis. CONCLUSION: Our SES assessment tool provides a more nuanced understanding of SES disparities and their implications for health and well-being.
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Januszewski et al. (2025) conducted an observational in Diabetes (n=6,051). Socio-economic status (SES) was evaluated on Vascular complications. Favourable socio-economic status was associated with a lower frequency of historical vascular complications among 6051 FIELD trial participants, but not with on-trial complications over 5 years.
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