United States coronary mortality trends and community services associated with occupational structure, among blacks and whites, 1984–1998

This paper examines the association between US county occupational structure, services availability, prevalence of risk factors, and coronary mortality rates by sex and race, for 1984–1998. The 3137 US counties were classified into five occupational structure categories; counties with the lowest percentages of the labor force in managerial, professional, and technical occupations were classified in category I (5–16%), counties with the highest percentages were in category V (32–59%). Directly age-adjusted coronary heart disease (CHD) mortality rates, for aged 35–64 years, (from vital statistics and Census data), per-capita services (County Business Patterns), and the prevalence of CHD risk factors (Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Surveys data) were calculated for each occupational structure category. CHD mortality rates and the prevalence of risk factors were inversely monotonically associated with occupational structure categories for white men and women but not among black men and women. Numbers of producer services for banking, business credit, overall business services and personnel/employment services were 2–12 times greater in category V versus I counties. Consumer services such as fruit/vegetable markets, fitness facilities, doctor offices and social services were 1.6–3 times greater in category V versus I counties. Residential racial segregation scores remained high in most areas despite declines during 1980–1990; occupational segregation by race and gender were shown indicating continued institutional racism. An ecological model for conceptualizing communities and health and the overall influence of state and national occupational structure is discussed; intervention strategies such as decreased wage disparities and ‘living wage’ standards and development is discussed.