Widening health inequalities? Time trends concerning self-rated health, smoking and obesity between 1984/1985 and 1999/2000 among adults in Augsburg

The analyses focused on time trends in health inequalities in the 25 to 64-year-old population of Augsburg. The analyses are based on four independent cross-sectional surveys from the MONICA/KORA study covering 15 years: 1984/1985 (n = 4,022), 1989/1990 (n = 3,966), 1994/1995 (n = 3,916) and 1999/2000 (n = 3,492). Socioeconomic status (SES) was assessed by educational level and per capita household income with separate analyses for each of these two variables. Both absolute and relative health inequalities were calculated. The results showed that inequalities in self-rated health did not change very much (with some indications for increasing inequalities). However, concerning smoking the results clearly pointed towards increasing health inequalities (for example concerning relative inequalities among women by educational level: significant increase from survey to survey of about 20 %). The prevalence of obesity was increased in all SES groups but the inequalities did not change very much. These time trends show that the efforts aimed at reducing health inequalities should be intensified.