Association between individual, household, and area-level socioeconomic status indicators with anthropometric indexes

Abstract

Objectives: Overweight and obesity are major determinants that contribute to the occurrence of non-communicable diseases. We aim to examine the association between anthropometric indexes and socioeconomic status.

Study design: This study was a population-based cross-sectional study conducted on 9846 adults aged 35 to 70 years who participated in the Hoveyzeh Cohort Study from May 2016 to August 2018 in southwestern Iran.

Methods: We assessed the relationship between three levels of socioeconomic indicators with eight anthropometric indexes. Multiple logistic regression was used to adjust the potential confounders.

Results: The mean ± sd age of 9846 participants was 48.80 ± 9.20, and 5820 (59.1 %) were female Among the socioeconomic indicators, after control for potential confounders, the wealth index and, in the second place, the townsend deprivation index had the strongest relationships with anthropometric indexes. In contrast, the relationships between education and anthropometric indexes were mostly weak and without certain trends. Among the anthropometric indexes, waist circumference, abdominal volume index, and waist to height ratio had a statistically significant association with socioeconomic indicators. The weakest associations were found for the waist to hip ratio index.

Conclusion: This study showed significant associations between socioeconomic and anthropometric indicators. The role of economic factors is more decisive than social factors.

Keywords: Anthropometric index; Educational level; Iran; Socioeconomic status; Townsend deprivation index; Wealth index.