Background: Socioeconomic factors have been identified as important determinants of morbidity and mortality in many populations but only few studies examined their importance in the Czech population. The objective of this study was to analyse the relationship between socioeconomic characteristics and mortality in districts of the Czech Republic in 1989-1993.
Methods and results: The association between age-standardised mortality (for men and women separately) from all causes, all cancers, lung cancer, cardiovascular and ischaemic heart disease in the age group 35-64 and socioeconomic characteristics of districts reported from the 1991 Census was studied in multiple linear regression. In principle, associations between socioeconomic factors and mortality were similar for all causes of death. Mortality was inversely related to percentage of population with secondary and university education and to proportion of population with any religious denomination. After controlling for other factors, correlation coefficients (r) between all cause mortality and proportion of population with primary education were 0.69 in men and 0.64 in women; for the proportion of population with any religious denomination the r were -0.42 and -0.72, respectively. Relation of mortality to mean of persons per room was stronger in women (r = 0.29) than in men (r = 0.10). Population density was most closely correlated with ischemic heart disease (r = 0.41) in men and 0.43 in women). Available socioeconomic factors explained over 60% of geographical variation in mortality from all causes, more than 50% of variation in cancers and about 40% of variation in ischaemic heart disease.
Conclusions: Although ecological studies do not allow firm identification of causal factors, our results agree well with other studies, and confirm the important effect of socioeconomic factors on health in the Czech population.