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This thesis investigated selected aspects of the role socioeconomic position and physical activity play in cardiometabolic health and disease, focusing on cardiometabolic traits and consequences of type 2 diabetes. Study I was based on the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. Study II was based on the Swedish Infrastructure for Medical Population-Based Life-Course and Environmental Research, and on summary data from genome-wide association studies. Study III and Study IV were based on Swedish national registers.

Study I examined whether between-individual variability in systolic blood pressure was larger in groups with a lower socioeconomic position in an English birth cohort followed until 25 years old. It also assessed whether socioeconomic position was associated with within-individual variability in systolic blood pressure. There was a clear socioeconomic gradient in between-individual variability in blood pressure only among females, from 3 to 17 years-old. Socioeconomic position was inversely associated with within-individual variability in blood pressure.

Study II assessed whether education was associated with trajectories of circulating metabolites among older Swedish adults, and determined whether observed associations reflected a causal effect through Mendelian randomisation. We found a social gradient between educational attainment and the concentration of 95 circulating metabolites in cohorts of older Swedish adults. Results from Mendelian randomisation suggested a protective effect of longer education on metabolites’ concentration, mediated by body mass index.

Study III was conducted among Swedish adults with type 2 diabetes. It found inequalities in mortality and major cardiovascular events disfavouring individuals at risk of poverty. We ascertained whether raising income among those individuals would lead to a reduction in inequalities. Our analyses did not indicate that this would be the case.

Study IV assessed whether physical activity was associated with the incidence of lower-extremity complications among Swedish adults with type 2 diabetes, and determined the prognostic value of physical activity for these complications. While low physical was associated with an increased incidence of lower-extremity complications, physical activity had little added prognostic value beyond prognostic factors commonly used in clinical practice.

This thesis highlighted some of the underexplored roles that socioeconomic position and physical activity play in cardiometabolic health and disease.