Social class gradients and serum uric acid in males and females.

The relation between serum uric acid and social class is examined by sex among 910 persons in Wensleydale, Yorkshire, 321 persons in Watford, Hertfordshire, and 1,213 persons in New Haven, Connecticut, all of whom were drawn from the general population. Among the men of Wensleydale there is a tendency of marginal significance at the 5% level for serum uric acid to increase with decreasing social class; in the New Haven women this same trend is significant at the 2.5% level; no trend was found among any of the other four sex-specific groups. Age did not account for the patterns observed. The difference between these findings and those of several studies from the United States is consistent with the view that both serum uric acid levels and gout are under multifactorial control.