Gender-specific, age-standardised prevalences for hypercholesterolaemia and low-serum HDL cholesterol concentration in five Scottish Health Surveys 1995, 1998, 2003 and 2008/2009 stratified by occupational social class
| Men | Women | |||||||||
| Proportion (%) (95% CI)* | Trend (p value) | Proportion (%) (95% CI)* | Trend (p value) | |||||||
| 1995 | 1998 | 2003 | 2008/2009† | 1995 | 1998 | 2003 | 2008/2009† | |||
| Hypercholesterolaemia‡ | ||||||||||
| All | 79.4 (77.9 to 80.9) | 69.5 (67.6 to 71.3) | 71.8 (69.4 to 74.1) | 64.6 (60.6 to 68.5) | −0.9 (0.16) | 74.2 (72.6 to 75.8) | 65.6 (63.8 to 67.5) | 69.0 (66.7 to 71.3) | 66.9 (63.0 to 70.7) | −0.4 (0.45) |
| I, professional | 76.1 (70.3 to 82.0) | 72.5 (66.1 to 78.8) | 70.1 (62.3 to 77.8) | 66.4 (53.1 to 79.7) | −0.7 (0.01) | 81.6 (74.1 to 89.0) | 70.0 (61.2 to 78.9) | 70.6 (60.5 to 80.7) | 65.9 (54.8 to 76.9) | −1.0 (0.16) |
| II, managerial | 82.1 (79.3 to 84.9) | 68.0 (64.3 to 71.7) | 72.7 (68.5 to 76.9) | 65.8 (58.7 to 73.0) | −0.9 (0.27) | 70.5 (67.2 to 73.9) | 65.5 (62.1 to 68.9) | 64.0 (59.9 to 68.1) | 68.3 (62.6 to 73.9) | −0.1 (0.75) |
| III, skilled NM | 80.3 (76.1 to 84.6) | 67.1 (61.3 to 72.8) | 65.0 (56.9 to 73.1) | 59.5 (48.8 to 70.2) | −1.3 (0.10) | 75.7 (73.2 to 78.2) | 62.9 (59.7 to 66.2) | 68.4 (64.3 to 72.5) | 66.0 (58.7 to 73.4) | −0.4 (0.53) |
| III, skilled M | 77.9 (75.4 to 80.5) | 70.3 (67.2 to 73.4) | 74.6 (70.3 to 78.9) | 69.9 (62.8 to 77.0) | −0.4 (0.39) | 77.0 (71.3 to 82.7) | 65.9 (59.6 to 72.2) | 83.5 (75.8 to 91.2) | 73.3 (63.5 to 83.1) | 0.2 (0.85) |
| IV, partly skilled | 79.8 (75.7 to 84.0) | 72.2 (67.8 to 76.6) | 68.6 (62.1 to 75.1) | 54.4 (45.3 to 63.6) | −1.8 (0.02) | 75.6 (71.9 to 79.4) | 69.0 (64.7 to 73.3) | 75.1 (69.9 to 80.2) | 66.7 (55.4 to 77.9) | −0.4 (0.41) |
| V, unskilled | 80.4 (73.8 to 87.1) | 68.9 (59.5 to 78.3) | 69.8 (59.8 to 79.8) | 56.6 (43.2 to 70.0) | −1.5 (0.08) | 76.2 (70.6 to 81.9) | 66.7 (59.2 to 74.1) | 64.1 (55.7 to 72.5) | 75.0 (60.9 to 89.2) | 0.0 (0.98) |
| SII (p value) | −1.7 (0.63) | 3.1 (0.33) | −0.8 (0.89) | −8.0 (0.42) | −0.6 (0.27) | 5.6 (0.21) | 2.9 (0.48) | 11.1 (0.26) | 1.3 (0.77) | −0.1 (0.83) |
| Low HDL cholesterol (direct method)§ | ||||||||||
| All | – | – | 6.6 (5.2 to 8.0) | 7.1 (4.8 to 9.3) | 0.1 | – | – | 9.2 (7.6 to 10.7) | 7.4 (5.2 to 9.7) | −0.3 |
| I, professional | – | – | 7.3 (2.8 to 11.7) | 8.8 (2.3 to 15.3) | 0.3 | – | – | 3.6 (0 to 8.0) | 5.5 (0 to 11.5) | 0.3 |
| II, managerial | – | – | 3.1 (1.3 to 4.9) | 5.7 (2.0 to 9.4) | 0.5 | – | – | 6.9 (4.5 to 9.3) | 4.3 (1.6 to 7.0) | −0.5 |
| III, skilled NM | – | – | 4.4 (0.4 to 8.4) | 3.1 (0 to 7.0) | −0.2 | – | – | 11.2 (8.1 to 14.3) | 9.8 (4.9 to 14.7) | −0.3 |
| III, skilled M | – | – | 9.7 (6.6 to 12.7) | 10.9 (5.6 to 16.3) | 0.2 | – | – | 6.9 (2.0 to 11.9) | 6.0 (0 to 12.8) | −0.2 |
| IV, partly skilled | – | – | 8.5 (4.4 to 12.6) | 3.9 (0.1 to 7.8) | −0.8 | – | – | 11.2 (7.3 to 15.1) | 11.3 (4.4 to 18.3) | 0.0 |
| V, unskilled | – | – | 12.7 (4.5 to 20.9) | 2.4 (0 to 7.3) | −1.9 | – | – | 11.5 (4.7 to 18.3) | 5.0 (0 to 12.4) | −1.2 |
| SII (p value) | 8.0 (0.09) | −0.5 (0.93) | −1.6 | 6.7 (0.07) | 7.9 (0.09) | 0.2 | ||||
Time trends not evaluated as only two time points. HDL cholesterol concentration was determined in the 1995 and 1998 Scottish Health Surveys using a cholesterol oxidase method and analyses relating to these surveys are reproduced in supplementary table 2.
↵* Negative lower limit has been set to zero.
↵† Merged data set.
↵‡ Total cholesterol serum concentration ≥5.0 mmol/l. A different laboratory completed analyses in 1995 than in later surveys. Different analysers were used but methods and reference standards were the same.
↵§ Low HDL cholesterol: men<1.0 mmol/l, women <1.2 mmol/l.
HDL, high-density lipoprotein; M, manual; NM, non-manual; SII, slope index of inequality.