Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Socioeconomic deprivation impact on meat intake and mortality: NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study

  • Original paper
  • Published:
Cancer Causes & Control Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Objective

Previous studies have not examined potential interactions between meat intake and characteristics of the local environment on the risk of mortality. This study examined the impact of area socioeconomic deprivation on the association between meat intake and all-cause and cause-specific mortality after accounting for individual-level risk factors.

Methods

In the prospective NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study, we analyzed data from adults, ages 50–71 years at baseline (1995–1996). Individual-level dietary intake and health risk information were linked to the demographic and socioeconomic context of participants’ local environment based on census tract data. Deaths (n = 33,831) were identified through December 2005. Multilevel Cox models were used to estimate hazard ratios and 95% confidence intervals for quintiles of area deprivation scores.

Results

Associations of red and processed meats with mortality were consistent across deprivation quintiles. Men residing in least-deprived neighborhoods had a stronger protective effect for white meat consumption. No differences by deprivation index were observed for women.

Conclusion

Red and processed meat intake increases mortality risk regardless of level of deprivation within a given neighborhood suggesting biological mechanisms rather than neighborhood contextual factors may underlie these meat-mortality associations. The effect of white meat intake on cancer mortality was modified by area deprivation among men.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Diez-Roux AV, Nieto FJ, Caulfield L, Tyroler HA, Watson RL, Szklo M (1999) Neighbourhood differences in diet: the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study. J Epidemiol Community Health 53(1):55–63 Epub 1999/05/18

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Morland K, Wing S, Diez Roux A (2002) The contextual effect of the local food environment on residents’ diets: the atherosclerosis risk in communities study. Am J Public Health 92(11):1761–1767 Epub 2002/10/31

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Dubowitz T, Heron M, Bird CE, Lurie N, Finch BK, Basurto-Davila R, et al. (2008) Neighborhood socioeconomic status and fruit and vegetable intake among whites, blacks, and Mexican Americans in the United States. Am J Clin Nutr 87(6):1883–1891

    Google Scholar 

  4. Stimpson JP, Nash AC, Ju H, Eschbach K (2007) Neighborhood deprivation is associated with lower levels of serum carotenoids among adults participating in the third national health and nutrition examination survey. J Am Diet Assoc 107(11):1895–1902

    Google Scholar 

  5. Hill TD, Angel RJ (2005) Neighborhood disorder, psychological distress, and heavy drinking. Soc Sci Med 61(5):965–975

    Google Scholar 

  6. Sinha R, Cross AJ, Graubard BI, Leitzmann MF, Schatzkin A (2009) Meat intake and mortality: a prospective study of over half a million people. Arch Intern Med 169(6):562–571 Epub 2009/03/25

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Krieger N (2007) Why epidemiologists cannot afford to ignore poverty. Epidemiology 18(6):658–663 Epub 2007/12/01

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. Pickett KE, Pearl M (2001) Multilevel analyses of neighbourhood socioeconomic context and health outcomes: a critical review. J Epidemiol Community Health 55(2):111–122 Epub 2001/01/12

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Krieger N, Chen JT, Waterman PD, Soobader MJ, Subramanian SV, Carson R (2002) Geocoding and monitoring of US socioeconomic inequalities in mortality and cancer incidence: does the choice of area-based measure and geographic level matter?: the public health disparities geocoding project. Am J Epidemiol 156(5):471–482 Epub 2002/08/28

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  10. Reijneveld SA, Verheij RA, de Bakker DH (1999) Relative importance of urbanicity, ethnicity and socioeconomic factors regarding area mortality differences. J Epidemiol Community Health 53(7):444–445 Epub 1999/09/24

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Major JM, Doubeni CA, Freedman ND, Park Y, Lian M, Hollenbeck AR et al (2010) Neighborhood socioeconomic deprivation and mortality: NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study. PLoS One 5(11):e15538 Epub 2010/12/03

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  12. Hutchinson RN, Putt MA, Dean LT, Long JA, Montagnet CA, Armstrong K (2009) Neighborhood racial composition, social capital and black all-cause mortality in Philadelphia. Soc Sci Med 68(10):1859–1865

    Google Scholar 

  13. Robbins JM, Webb DA (2004) Neighborhood poverty, mortality rates, and excess deaths among African Americans: Philadelphia 1999–2001. J Health Care Poor Underserved 15(4):530–7

    Google Scholar 

  14. Martikainen P, Kauppinen TM, Valkonen T (2003) Effects of the characteristics of neighbourhoods and the characteristics of people on cause specific mortality: a register based follow up study of 252, 000 men. J Epidemiol Community Health 57(3):210–217 Epub 2003/02/21

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. Bosma H, van de Mheen HD, Borsboom GJ, Mackenbach JP (2001) Neighborhood socioeconomic status and all-cause mortality. Am J Epidemiol 153(4):363–371 Epub 2001/02/24

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. Anderson RT, Sorlie P, Backlund E, Johnson N, Kaplan GA (1997) Mortality effects of community socioeconomic status. Epidemiology 8(1):42–47 Epub 1997/01/01

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  17. Yen IH, Kaplan GA (1999) Neighborhood social environment and risk of death: multilevel evidence from the Alameda County study. Am J Epidemiol 149(10):898–907 Epub 1999/05/26

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  18. LeClere FB, Rogers RG, Peters K (1998) Neighborhood social context and racial differences in women’s heart disease mortality. J Health Soc Behav 39(2):91–107 Epub 1998/06/27

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  19. Jaffe DH, Eisenbach Z, Neumark YD, Manor O (2005) Individual, household and neighborhood socioeconomic status and mortality: a study of absolute and relative deprivation. Soc Sci Med 60(5):989–97

    Google Scholar 

  20. Beaulac J, Kristjansson E, Cummins S (2009) A systematic review of food deserts, 1966–2007. Prev Chronic Dis 6(3):A105

    Google Scholar 

  21. Larson NI, Story MT, Nelson MC (2009) Neighborhood environments: disparities in access to healthy foods in the U.S. Am J Prev Med 36(1):74–81

    Google Scholar 

  22. Schatzkin A, Subar AF, Thompson FE, Harlan LC, Tangrea J, Hollenbeck AR et al (2001) Design and serendipity in establishing a large cohort with wide dietary intake distributions: the National Institutes of Health-American Association of Retired Persons Diet and Health Study. Am J Epidemiol 154(12):1119–1125 Epub 2001/12/18

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  23. Willett W (1998) Nutritional epidemiology, vol xiv, 2nd edn. Oxford University Press, New York

    Book  Google Scholar 

  24. Messer LC, Laraia BA, Kaufman JS, Eyster J, Holzman C, Culhane J et al (2006) The development of a standardized neighborhood deprivation index. J Urban Health 83(6):1041–1062 Epub 2006/10/13

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  25. Krieger N, Chen JT, Waterman PD, Soobader MJ, Subramanian SV, Carson R (2003) Choosing area based socioeconomic measures to monitor social inequalities in low birth weight and childhood lead poisoning: the Public Health Disparities Geocoding Project (US). J Epidemiol Community Health 57(3):186–199 Epub 2003/02/21

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  26. Thompson FE, Kipnis V, Midthune D, Freedman LS, Carroll RJ, Subar AF, et al. (2008) Performance of a food-frequency questionnaire in the US NIH-AARP (National Institutes of Health-American Association of Retired Persons) Diet and Health Study. Public Health Nutr 11(2):183-95

    Google Scholar 

  27. Therneau TM, Grambsch PM (2000) Modeling survival data: extending the Cox model. Springer, New York

    Google Scholar 

  28. Wei LJ, Lin DY, Weissfeld L (1989) Regression analysis of multivariate incomplete failure time data by modeling marginal distributions. J Am Stat Assoc 84:8

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Andersen PK, Klein JP, Knudsen KM, Tabanera y Palacios R (1997) Estimation of variance in Cox’s regression model with shared gamma frailties. Biometrics 53(4):1475–1484 Epub 1998/01/10

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  30. Klein JP (1992) Semiparametric estimation of random effects using the Cox model based on the EM algorithm. Biometrics 48(3):795–806 Epub 1992/09/01

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  31. Mustard CA, Etches J (2003) Gender differences in socioeconomic inequality in mortality. J Epidemiol Community Health 57(12):974–980 Epub 2003/12/04

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  32. Vagero D (2000) Health inequalities in women and men. BMJ 320(7245):1286–1287 Epub 2000/05/12

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  33. McDonough P, Williams DR, House JS, Duncan GJ (1999) Gender and the socioeconomic gradient in mortality. J Health Soc Behav 40(1):17–31 Epub 1999/05/20

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  34. Fraser GE (1999) Associations between diet and cancer, ischemic heart disease, and all-cause mortality in non-hispanic white California seventh-day adventists. Am J Clin Nutr 70(3 (suppl)):532S–538S Epub 1999/09/09

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  35. Kahn HA, Phillips RL, Snowdon DA, Choi W (1984) Association between reported diet and all-cause mortality. Twenty-one-year follow-up on 27, 530 adult Seventh-Day Adventists. Am J Epidemiol 119(5):775–787 Epub 1984/05/01

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  36. Stunkard AJ, Albaum JM (1981) The accuracy of self-reported weights. Am J Clin Nutr 34(8):1593–1599 Epub 1981/08/01

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  37. Perry GS, Byers TE, Mokdad AH, Serdula MK, Williamson DF (1995) The validity of self-reports of past body weights by US adults. Epidemiology 6(1):61–66 Epub 1995/01/01

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

We are indebted to the participants in the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study for their outstanding cooperation. We also thank Sigurd Hermansen and Kerry Grace Morrissey from Westat for study outcomes ascertainment and management and Leslie Carroll at Information Management Services for data support. This research was supported [in part] by the Intramural Research Program of the NIH, National Cancer Institute.

Conflict of interest

None.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, 6120 Executive Boulevard, Rockville, MD, 20852, USA

    Jacqueline M. Major, Amanda J. Cross, Yikyung Park, Arthur Schatzkin, Barry I. Graubard & Rashmi Sinha

  2. Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, 01655, USA

    Chyke A. Doubeni

  3. Department of Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MT, 63108, USA

    Min Lian

  4. AARP, Washington, DC, 20049, USA

    Albert R. Hollenbeck

Authors
  1. Jacqueline M. Major
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Amanda J. Cross
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Chyke A. Doubeni
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Yikyung Park
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Min Lian
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Albert R. Hollenbeck
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Arthur Schatzkin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  8. Barry I. Graubard
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  9. Rashmi Sinha
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jacqueline M. Major.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Major, J.M., Cross, A.J., Doubeni, C.A. et al. Socioeconomic deprivation impact on meat intake and mortality: NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study. Cancer Causes Control 22, 1699–1707 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-011-9846-0

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-011-9846-0

Keywords

Search

Navigation