Abstract P1104: The Association Between Subjective Social Status and Dietary Quality Within Occupational Groups of African Americans: The Jackson Heart Study

What people eat is a major contributor to health outcomes, including development of metabolic, cardiovascular, and other chronic diseases. Dietary quality varies widely is influenced by factors including sex, race, geographic location, socioeconomic status, self-perception of community standing, and occupation. These factors potentially interact, making an understanding of dietary quality difficult to fully disaggregate and therefore challenging to modify from a population health perspective. This study sought to analyze the interaction between subjective social status (SSS) and occupation on dietary quality among African Americans in the Deep South, as well as assess their marginal effects. Hypotheses Dietary quality will vary by occupational groups and levels of SSS. There will be an interaction between occupational groups and (SSS) on dietary quality. Methods: A cross-sectional analysis of data from participants of the Jackson Heart Study was completed. Participants ( n = 4,727) who had complete data for occupation, the alternative healthy eating index (AHEI, a measure of diet quality) score, and SSS (as measured by the Community MacArthur Scale) at exam 1 were included in the analysis. A general linear model with main and interaction effects for SSS and occupation group was fit to AHEI. Results: Type III F -tests from ANOVA showed no significant interaction between SSS and occupational groups with respect to mean AHEI scores ( p = 0.7635). Significant main effects were found for both the occupational groups and SSS level ( p < 0.0001). Pairwise comparisons of occupational groups revealed significantly different mean AHEI scores among several groups. Most notably, those in the management/professional occupation appeared to have higher mean AHEI compared to all the other groups. Mean AHEI was estimated to increase by 0.3723 units (SE = 0.0781) for every one-unit increase in SSS. Residual diagnostics and goodness-of-fit methods verified model adequacy. Conclusions In conclusion, occupation and SSS each contribute significantly to dietary quality as measured by AHEI; some occupational groups show significant differences in dietary quality; and there is no evidence of an interaction between occupation groups and SSS, indicating that the positive association between subjective social status and dietary quality is the same for each occupational group.