Socioeconomic Determinants of Stroke (SEDS)

Determine associations of overall stroke, first-ever stroke and subtype-specific stroke rates with socioeconomic status using area specific deprivation indices, SEIFA (Australia) and NZDep (New Zealand).

Determine the relative contributions of individual socioeconomic indicators to stroke risk using occupation codes ASCO (Australia) and NZSCO (New Zealand).
Determine the influence of socioeconomic indices on the stroke outcomes of 'early' (28 day) and 'late' (one year) case fatality, dependency and institutionalisation (at three to six months), and use of health services (hospital admission, investigations and medications).

Use these data to explore potential pathways between social disadvantage and various biological/behavioural processes (including risk factors) to develop strategies to reduce stroke risk and improve outcomes.

Methods

This project pools individual patient data from four stroke incidence studies in Australia and New Zealand that have:

  • Fulfilled the stringent 'ideal' methodological criteria
  • Achieved high rates of neuroimaging to allow classification of events into principal pathological stroke subtypes
  • Included at least two measures of socioeconomic deprivation or social class
  • Been relatively homogenous - involving urban, predominantly Caucasian populations

Status

All studies have been completed and the data are being cleaned in preparation for pooling.

Leads