Educational gradient in hip fracture incidence in Norway. The Norwegian Epidemiologic Osteoporosis Studies (NOREPOS)

Examining fracture dynamics by socioeconomic status may inform healthcare and prevention. We found a higher risk of hip fracture in men and women with lower educational level in Norway. However, by age 90 + years, the cumulative incidence was higher in those with higher education, due to their higher life expectancy. Socioeconomic gradients are seen for several health outcomes in high-income countries. We aimed to examine possible educational gradients in risk of hip fracture in Norway and to describe the cumulative incidence of hip fracture by educational level. In a population-wide cohort of Norwegians aged ≥ 50 years, information on attained education from Statistics Norway was linked to hospital-treated hip fractures and deaths during 2002–2019. We estimated relative fracture risk by educational level (primary, secondary or tertiary) in Cox proportional hazards regression. We also examined the cumulative incidence over attained age by gender and educational level in competing risk regression. The population included N = 1,389,858 individuals with 135,938 incident hip fractures. Compared with men who had attained tertiary education, hazard ratios (95