Associations between area socioeconomic status, individual mental health, physical activity, diet and change in cardiometabolic risk amongst a cohort of Australian adults: A longitudinal path analysis

Abstract

Presumed pathways from environments to cardiometabolic risk largely implicate health behaviour although mental health may play a role. Few studies assess relationships between these factors. This study estimated associations between area socioeconomic status (SES), mental health, diet, physical activity, and 10-year change in glycosylated haemoglobin (HbA1c), comparing two proposed path structures: 1) mental health and behaviour functioning as parallel mediators between area SES and HbA1c; and 2) a sequential structure where mental health influences behaviour and consequently HbA1c. Three waves (10 years) of population-based biomedical cohort data were spatially linked to census data based o..