Association between socioeconomic indicators and geographic distribution of vestibular schwannomas in West Scotland: a 15-year review

Abstract

Objective: Socioeconomic risk factors may contribute to geographic variation in diseases, but studies are limited due to lack of large available cohorts.

Method: A geographic analysis was performed of the association between socioeconomic risk factors and the distribution of vestibular schwannomas in adults diagnosed with sporadic vestibular schwannomas through the National Health Services in the West of Scotland from 2000 to 2015.

Results: A total of 511 sporadic vestibular schwannomas were identified in a population of over 3.1 million. Prevalence of vestibular schwannomas were lowest in cases with good health (-0.64, 95 per cent confidence interval: -0.93,-0.38; p = 0.002) and level 1 qualifications (-0.562, 95 per cent confidence interval: -0.882 to -0.26; p = 0.01). However, these risk factors did not demonstrate consistent linearity of correlations. Prevalence was lower in people originating from European Union accession countries from April 2001 to March 2011 (-0.63, 95 per cent confidence interval: -0.84 to -0.43; p = 0.002). No correlation between distribution of vestibular schwannomas and socioeconomic risk factors met our threshold criteria (± 0.7).

Conclusion: This study demonstrated that there is little variation in distribution of vestibular schwannomas by socioeconomic risk factors.

Keywords: Neuroma, Acoustic; Prevalence; Risk Factors; Scotland; Skull Base Neoplasms; Socioeconomic Factors.