Fornari et al. BMC Public Health 2010, 10:574 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/10/574 Table 1 Baseline characteristics, men and women 35-69 years-old free of previous CVD Men (N = 7520) n % Women (N = 13127) n % Age groups 35-39 40-49 50-59 60-69 Missing Educational level High Medium Low Missing Marital Status Married or cohabitating Other living arrangements Missing 1095 2437 2403 1585 0 2262 2091 3017 150 6643 814 63 14.6 32.4 32.0 21.1 0.0 30.1 27.8 40.1 2.0 88.3 10.8 0.8 1524 4823 4552 2228 0 3788 3557 5439 343 10767 2276 84 11.6 36.7 34.7 17.0 0.0 28.9 27.1 41.4 2.6 82.0 17.3 0.6 cholesterol and prevalence of treatment for hyperten- sion than men in the high and medium education cate- gories but higher levels of triglycerides and prevalence of diabetes. BMI and proportion of smokers increased from the high education group to the low. Highly edu- cated men had lower levels of diastolic blood pressure than the other men and lower systolic blood pressure than less educated men. In women, blood pressure, tri- glycerides, BMI levels and prevalence of diabetes and Table 2 Cardiovascular risk factors in relation to social status indicators MEN Systolic blood pressure (mmHg)* Diastolic blood pressure (mmHg)* Total Cholesterol (mg/dl)* HDL Cholesterol (mg/dl) Triglycerides (mg/dl)* BMI (kg/m2)*^ Cardiovascular risk score§*^ Diabetes (Yes/No)*^ Smoke (Yes/No)* Antihypertensive Medication (Yes/No)* 137.5 (17.3) 86.0 (10.3) ° 226.2 (43.0)° 49.8 (12.9) 141.9 (93.4)° 26.3 (3.4) ° 7.4 (3.6)° n (%) 85 (4.6)° 760 (31.0) ° 164 (11.0)° 139.3 (18.8) 87.0 (11.1) 226.4 (46.6)’ 50.6 (14.4) 149.5 (115.2)’ 26.6 (3.6)’ 7.7 (4.6) n (%) 106 (5.2)’ 815 (39.3)’ 193 (10.8)’ 138.0 (19.3) 87.2 (11.2) 222.2 (42.5) 49.7 (13.7) 160.8 (112.8) 27.0 (3.7) 7.9 (6.3) n (%) 233 (6.8) 1371 (47.5) 334 (8.7) Page 4 of 9 antihypertensive treatment had an increasing trend from high to low levels of education. Total, HDL cho- lesterol and the proportion of smokers decreased with a lower educational level. Individual global cardiovas- cular risk was lower in highly educated women. Highly educated men had higher global risk than less edu- cated men. The relation between marital status and cardiovascular risk factors was more moderate. Marriage or cohabita- tion were protective conditions for diabetes in men, but not in women. Major cardiovascular risk factors, such as high blood pressure, low HDL cholesterol, triglycerides and BMI, were higher in married or cohabitating women than in women with other living arrangements. The opposite was true for smoking (23.9% vs 31.7%). BMI was higher also in married or cohabitating men. No differences in the cardiovascular risk score were observed by marital status in women, while men living alone showed higher risk than men who were married or cohabitating. During the follow-up, 718 cardiovascular incident events for men and 364 for women were detected and respectively 217 and 120 were fatal events. No relation- ship between events and social status indicators, educa- tional level and marital status, was observed in either gender (Table 4), but cardiovascular case-fatality was significantly higher in men living alone (HR 3.20, 95% CI: 2.21-4.64) (Table 5). This relationship was detected also for stroke and coronary case-fatality considered separately (data not shown). Stratifying the study popu- lation by geographical area (Tables 4 and 5), in the Northern regions of Italy the incidence of cardiovascular 138.6 (18.5) 86.8 (10.8) 224.8 ( 44.0) 50.2 (13.7) 151.7 (106.6) 26.8 (3.6) 7.7 (5.0) n (%) 370 (5.5) 2639 (39.7) 622 (9.5) 139.9 (19.5) 86.8 (11.8) 224.0 (45.1) 50.8 (14.2) 156.7 (121.9) 26.3 (3.7) 8.2 (5.7) n (%) 58 (7.6) 344 (41.7) 77 (10.1) EDUCATIONAL LEVEL High Medium Low mean (s.d.) mean (s.d.) mean (s.d.) MARITAL STATUS Married or Cohabitating Other living arrangements mean (s.d.) mean (s.d.) Men 35-69 years-old, free of previous CVD. Age-adjusted means and percentages using European Population 1995. s.d.=standard deviation. *p < 0.05. ANOVA for continuous variables (test F) and Chi-squared test for categorical variables among educational levels. Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons was used: High vs Medium; ° High vs Low; ‘ Medium vs Low. ^ p < 0.05. ANOVA for continuous variables (test F) and Chi-squared Test for categorical variables among marital status categories. § Cardiovascular risk score calculated using Progetto CUORE Study equation.