Kim and Ruger BMC Public Health 2010, 10:195 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/10/195 Table 2: Sociodemographic Indicators Overall and by Income Quintile (2005) (Continued) Unemployed Education Illiterate Elementary Middle High College & above Marital status Never married Married Single 8.35 2.13 12.68 13.69 42.27 29.13 8.22 82.25 9.53 50.43 55.41 37.6 26.71 17.39 8.76 23.39 17.76 35.6 20.42 20.29 26.55 24.58 21.69 11.73 16.52 19.84 23.95 12.85 12.24 15.42 20.47 23.43 17.47 18.08 20.82 14.88 9.65 7.71 13.7 18.47 20.61 24.06 19.04 20.64 15.57 Page 7 of 19 6.64 4.36 6.73 9.77 16.87 37.97 22.97 20.94 10 Calculations subject to rounding errors 2005. For males, the prevalence of current smoking among the illiterate (65.8%) was higher than that among the college and above education class (61.7%) in 1998. A similar trend was observed in 2005 with 56.5% illiterate current smokers and 49.8% college and above smokers. For alcohol consumption, a higher percentage of males (35.9%) than females (4.0%) reported heavy drinking in 1998; the gender gap persisted in 2005, although heavy drinking increased (71.5% in males and 31.5% in females). In 1998, heavy drinking was more prevalent among illit- erate (43.6%) and elementary-educated males (38.8%) as compared to college and above (33.7%) and high-level educated (34.9%) males. For both men and women, heavy drinking increased in 2005 in all the education categories and college and above educated individuals drank more heavily among men but not women. For women, the prevalence of heavy drinking in 1998 was highest in the middle and high educated groups (6.0% and 5.3%) and lowest in the college and above educated (2.3%) and ele- mentary (2.8%) groups. In terms of adequate sleep, there were no major differ- ences by education in sleeping habits for males, though the result was statistically different; for females the lowest rates of adequate sleep were in the illiterate and elemen- tary education classes (53.0% and 54.4% respectively) in 1998; the pattern was more or less the same in 2005. Income Disparities Table 5 and 6 report age-adjusted income disparities in behavioral risk factors by gender. In 1998, over four times as many women in the lowest income group (8.1%) reported currently smoking compared to women in the highest income group (1.7%). In 2005, current smoking rates declined to 4.5% in the lowest income group but increased to 8.2% in the highest income group. Overall, women reporting current smoking increased from 4.6% in 1998 to 5.8% in 2005. The average current smoking rate for men dropped overall from 64.3% in 1998 to 51.7% in 2005. But the income gradient remained, as the lowest and low income groups had the highest current smoking rates in both 1998 (69.9% and 64.6%) and 2005 (64.7% and 75.4%) compared to all other income groups. In alcohol consumption in 1998, men and women in the lowest income group had higher rates of heavy drinking than those in the highest income group (35.1% to 34.6% for men, 5.5% to 2.8% for women). This trend reversed in 2005, when men and women in the highest income group had higher rates of heavy drinking than those in the low- est income group (77.7% to 66.1% for men, 43.9% to 38.7% for women). For obesity rates in 1998, women in the lowest income group had higher rates of obesity compared to women in the highest class (29.8% to 26.7%) while men in the lowest