BACKGROUND There is universal agreement that higher mortality goes with lower income. Opinions differ on causality: the association may reflect the damaging effect of poverty on health and survival chances. Conversely, it may reflect selection/reverse causation: low income indicates health problems, and from health problems follow a higher risk of dying. METHODS We studied all deaths in Norwa...

Study objective: To demonstrate how Care Need Index (CNI), a social deprivation index, may be used to allocate total primary health care resources. Design: Cross sectional survey and register data. The CNI was based on sociodemographic factors: elderly persons living alone, children under age 5, unemployed people, people with low educational status, single parents, high mobility, and foreign bo...

BACKGROUND Relatively little is known about the social distribution of total knee joint replacement (TKR) uptake in Australia. We examine associations between socioeconomic status (SES) and TKR performed for diagnosed osteoarthritis 2003-10 for all Australian males and females aged ≥ 30 yr. METHODS Data of primary TKR (n=213,018, 57.4% female) were ascertained from a comprehensive national jo...

STUDY OBJECTIVE To demonstrate how Care Need Index (CNI), a social deprivation index, may be used to allocate total primary health care resources. DESIGN Cross sectional survey and register data. The CNI was based on sociodemographic factors: elderly persons living alone, children under age 5, unemployed people, people with low educational status, single parents, high mobility, and foreign bo...

BACKGROUND Little research has evaluated disparities in life expectancy according to material deprivation taking into account differences across the lifespan between men and women. This study investigated age- and sex-specific life expectancy differentials related to area-level material deprivation for the province of Québec, Canada from 1989-2004. METHODS Age- and sex-specific life expectanc...

Objective The aim of this study is to map obesity prevalence in Seattle King County at the census block level. Methods Data for 1,632 adult men and women came from the Seattle Obesity Study I. Demographic, socioeconomic and anthropometric data were collected via telephone survey. Home addresses were geocoded, and tax parcel residential property values were obtained from the King County tax as...

A major issue in the widespread controversy about the legality of poker and the appropriate taxation of winnings is whether poker should be considered a game of skill or a game of chance. To inform this debate we present an analysis into the role of skill in the performance of online poker players, using a large database with hundreds of millions of player-hand observations from real money ring...