Neighborhood socioeconomic characteristics and statin medication in patients with myocardial infarction: a Swedish nationwide follow-up study

BACKGROUND: Coronary heart disease (CHD) and myocardial infarction (MI) are associated with neighborhood-level socioeconomic status (SES). Statins are important drugs for secondary prevention of MI. However, no study has determined whether neighborhood-level SES is associated with statin medication in MI patients. We aimed to determine whether there is a difference in statin medication rate in MI patients across different levels of neighborhood SES. METHODS: All patients in Sweden, diagnosed with incident MI from January 1st, 2000 until December 31(st) 2010, were followed (n = 116,840). Of these, 89.7 % received statin medication. Data were analyzed by multilevel logistic regression, with individual-level characteristics (age, marital status, family income, educational attainment, country of origin, urban/rural status and comorbidities/chronic conditions related to MI) as covariates. RESULTS: Low neighborhood-level SES was significantly associated with low statin medication rate (Odds Ratio 0.80). In the full model, which took into account individual-level socioeconomic characteristics and MI comorbidities, the odds no longer remained significant. CONCLUSIONS: Individual-level approaches may be most important in health care policies regarding statin medication in MI patients. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12872-016-0319-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.