TY - JOUR T1 - The relationship of socioeconomic status to emphysema and airway wall thickness JF - European Respiratory Journal JO - Eur Respir J VL - 44 IS - Suppl 58 SP - P1087 AU - Miriam Gjerdevik AU - Thomas Grydeland AU - Amund Gulsvik AU - Per Bakke Y1 - 2014/09/01 UR - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/44/Suppl_58/P1087.abstract N2 - Background: Low socioeconomic status (SES) is a risk factor of chronic obstructive lung disease (COPD). There is limited or no knowledge on the relationship between SES and quantitative computed tomography measures (CT) of emphysema and airway wall thickness (AWT).Objective: To see if low SES is associated with increased emphysema and AWT.Method: Our data from a Norwegian community based study included 947 ever-smokers, 49% with COPD, mean age (standard deviation (SD)) 59.8 (10.4). The sample was divided into educational levels primary, secondary and university, comprising 217, 559 and 171 subjects, respectively. The median percent emphysema (25th/75th percentiles) was 3.3 (0.9/13.9), 1.6 (0.4/6.5) and 0.8 (0.3/2.5) at each level. For AWT at internal perimeter of 10 mm, the mean (SD) was 0.49 (0.04), 0.48 (0.03) and 0.48 (0.03). We performed linear regression analyses of difference in emphysema level (log-transformed) and difference in AWT by level of education. The models were adjusted for sex, age, smoking status, age-of-onset of smoking, pack years, height, body mass index and COPD status.Results: The level of emphysema increased with lower education, the geometric means being 1.4 and 1.3 for primary and secondary compared to university education (p-values 0.009 and 0.014). The AWT was 1.5 times as high in primary educated smokers as in university educated non-smokers.Conclusion: Low SES was related to increasing level of emphysema and AWT. This should be taken into account when designing and analyzing studies in which CT is used to characterize COPD patients, to avoid bias when examining SES dependent variables. ER -