BACKGROUND This thesis studies the relationship between area-level socioeconomic status and the incidence and 30-day survival of out of hospital cardiac arrest. The effect of socioeconomic status on health has been studied for over 150 years.  Although cardiac arrest is a major public health problem there has been very little focus on socioeconomic status and out of hospital cardiac arrest. DATA AND METHODS The cardiac arrest data are obtained from the Swedish cardiac arrest registry. Data on age structure and percentage of immigrants is from SCBs total population registry and socioeconomic data come from SCBs LISA database. The incidence analysis is made in two steps. The first step calculates the age standardized incidence and the second step is an OLS analysis. For the survival analysis a logistic regression analysis is made to measure the probability of survival in different income areas. RESULTS For the socioeconomic status – incidence analysis the results from the OLS analysis suggest that the incidence is almost twice as high in the lowest income area. Intercept (Highest group) = 26.8 and <140 000 (lowest group) = 24.5. In the survival analysis (using a binary logistic regression analysis) there was a significantly lower OR for the lowest income group for all patients (OR= 0.521, p= 0.049) and for the sub group (patients 18-75 years old) there was a significant negative relationship for the two lowest groups. <140 000 (OR= 0.444, p= 0.032) and 140 000-159 000 (OR= 0.620, p= 0.046). CONCLUSION There is a significant relationship between living in a poor neighborhood and out of hospital cardiac arrest. Those living in poorer areas have both an increased incidence and lower chance of survival of out of hospital cardiac arrest.

Religious nonaffiliates who have high certainty in the existence of God or a higher power (theistic nones) have grown rapidly in size in the U.S. in the last 30 years, and are now the fourth largest American religious or secular category. This subgroup has been overlooked in prior research on religion, secularism, and health. We build on recent work on religion and health by distinguishing between atheists, agnostics, and nonaffliliated theists when examining the link between religious or secular identification and self-rated health. Specifically, we advance research on the heterogeneity of secular individuals and health by splitting nonaffiliated theists into two subgroups: those who report certainty in their beliefs about God or some higher power (i.e., theistic nones), and those who are less certain about their beliefs in God (i.e., doubting nones). We analyze 13 waves (1988–2018) of pooled data (N = 15,349) from the General Social Survey (GSS), a large, recurring, and nationally-representative sample of U.S. adults conducted on a periodic basis. Using the GSS, we assessed self-rated health across religious and secular categories in a well-controlled model. When compared with conservative Protestants, theistic nones and atheists had significantly higher levels of self-rated health, whereas agnostics and low-certainty nonaffiliated theists (doubting nones) did not report significantly higher levels of self-rated health. This study adds to previous research by differentiating between theistic and doubting nones among nonaffiliated theists in relation to overall health differences. The results suggest that the level of certainty in beliefs about God or a higher power are an important factor among religious nones for predicting health outcomes. These findings highlight the necessity of analyzing heterogenous subgroups within secular populations in studies of health and well-being.