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Lifecourse and health
IQ and alcohol-related morbidity and mortality among Swedish men and women: the importance of socioeconomic position
  1. Sara Sjölund1,
  2. Tomas Hemmingsson2,3,
  3. Jan-Eric Gustafsson4,
  4. Peter Allebeck1
  1. 1Division of Social Medicine, Department of Public Health Sciences, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
  2. 2Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
  3. 3Centre for Social Research on Alcohol and Drugs, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
  4. 4Department of Education, Göteborg University, Gothenburg, Sweden
  1. Correspondence to Sara Sjölund, Division of Social Medicine, Department of Public Health Sciences, Karolinska Institutet, Plan 8, Tomtebodavägen 18A, Stockholm 171 76, Sweden; sara.sjolund{at}ki.se

Abstract

Aims To investigate the association between intelligence in childhood and later risk of alcohol-related disease and death by examining (1) the mediating effect of social position as an adult and (2) gender as a possible moderator.

Design Cohort study.

Setting and participants 21 809 Swedish men and women, born in 1948 and 1953, from the Swedish “Evaluation Through Follow-up” database were followed until 2006/2007.

Measurements IQ was measured in school at the age of 13 and alcohol-related disease and death (International Classification of Disease codes) were followed from 1971 and onwards.

Findings We found an increased crude HR of 1.23 (95% CI 1.18 to 1.29) for every decrease in group of IQ test results for alcohol-related admissions and 1.14 (95% CI 1.04 to 1.24) for alcohol-related death. Social position as an adult was found to mediate both outcomes. Gender was not found to moderate the association. However, adjusting for socioeconomic position lowered the risk more among men than among women.

Conclusions There was an inverse, graded association between IQ and alcohol-related disease and death, which at least partially was mediated by social position as an adult. For alcohol-related death, complete mediation by socioeconomic position as an adult was found. Gender does not moderate this association. The role of socioeconomic position may differ between the genders.

  • ALCOHOL
  • COGNITION
  • Cohort studies
  • GENDER
  • SOCIO-ECONOMIC

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

https://doi.org/10.1136/jech-2014-204761

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