• FosterHamish M EHMEGeneral Practice and Primary Care, Institute of Health and Wellbeing, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK. Electronic address: hamish.foster@glasgow.ac.uk., GillJason M RJMRInstitute of Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK., Bhautesh D Jani, Carlos Celis-Morales, Duncan Lee, Frances S Mair, and Catherine A O'Donnell.
• General Practice and Primary Care, Institute of Health and Wellbeing, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK. Electronic address: hamish.foster@glasgow.ac.uk.
• Lancet. 2022 Nov 1; 400 Suppl 1: S38S38.

BackgroundCombinations of unhealthy behaviours are associated with greater mortality than single behaviours, but some combinations might have stronger associations than others. High-risk combinations might be more prevalent among socioeconomically deprived populations. We examined associations between combinations of 11 unhealthy behaviours and mortality and explored socioeconomic distributions of high-risk combinations.MethodsWe used the UK Biobank population cohort (n=502 459; aged 37-73 years) recruited between 2006 and 2010. Analysis included 229 197 participants with complete data. Main exposures were any combination of smoking, alcohol, physical activity, television time, sleep, added salt, social isolation, intake of red meat, processed meat, oily fish, and fruit and vegetables (each classified as healthy or unhealthy via guidelines or latest evidence). Townsend index was used to explore socioeconomic distribution. Cox proportional hazard models were used to examine associations between behaviours and all-cause mortality. Models were adjusted for demographic, health, and socioeconomic factors.FindingsOver a median follow-up of 11·6 years, 9739 (4·2%) of 229 197 participants died. From 716 unique combinations, 77 (11%) were associated with mortality with hazard ratios (HRs) greater than that for smoking alone (2·31 [95% CI 2·11-2·53]); HRs ranged from 9·44 to 2·34. Of these 77 high-risk combinations, smoking featured in 61 (79%), low fruit and vegetables in 45 (58%), and low oily fish in 41 (53%). All combinations featuring social isolation (18 [23%] of 77) had HRs greater than 3·00. Participants with high-risk combinations had greater deprivation scores than those with no unhealthy behaviours. Median deprivation scores of the ten highest risk combinations ranged from -2·0 to 2·1, whereas for participants with no unhealthy behaviours the score was -2·5. Examining women and men separately resulted in similar findings. Examination of ethnic differences was severely limited by small numbers of participants in minority ethnic groups.InterpretationMany unique unhealthy behaviour combinations are strongly associated with mortality and high-risk combinations are more prevalent among more deprived populations than among more affluent populations. Exploring unique combinations of a wide range of health behaviours can identify high-risk populations. Future work with adequately sampled minority ethnic groups is required to examine high-risk combinations by ethnicity. Supporting healthy living in deprived populations, including tackling structural barriers to health, could address a wide range of health behaviours in combination.FundingUK Medical Research Council.Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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