Associations of educational attainment, occupation and community poverty with knee osteoarthritis in the Johnston County (North Carolina) osteoarthritis project

Table 1 Characteristics of the sample overall

Variable	Total group (n= 3,522)
Age group, %
45 to 54	35.6
55 to 64	29.6
> 64	34.9
Female, %	61.7
BMI ≥ 30%	39.8
African American	33.8
Smoking now, %	21.6
Knee injury, %	19.1
¹High occupational activity, %	46.9
Educational attainment, %
Less than 12 yr	33.7
²Non-managerial Occupation, %	56.2
Poverty rate group, %
Low (< 12%)	21.7
Medium (12 to 25%)	55.9
High (> 25%)	22.4
Knee OA, %	29.5
Bilateral Knee OA, %	14.7
Knee Symptomatic OA, %	17.7
Bilateral Knee Symptomatic OA, %	6.3

¹ Self-report of above-median frequency for job-related squatting, lifting, standing, and walking.
² An indicator of lower SES occupational category which may include jobs where one has less control over the pace of their work and tend to exclude jobs described as office work, managerial, professional, technical, and sales.

ISSN: 1478-6362