Indicators of socioeconomic position (part 2)
Journal of Epidemiology & Community HealthPublished 13 January 2006Open access
Bruna Galobardes, Mary Shaw, Debbie A Lawlor, John W Lynch, George Davey Smith
Citations659
SJR quartileQ1
SJR score1.78
SNIP1.24
Generate an AI Snapshot to get a quick, structured summary of this paper.
Study Snapshot
ObjectiveStudy objective
MethodsResearch methodology
PopulationPopulation studied
Sample sizeSample sizes
OutcomesStudy outcomes here
ResultsStudy results comes here
LimitationsResearch study limitations comes here
A concise AI-generated summary of the paper will appear here once you click Generate AI Snapshot.
TL;DR
This is the second part of a glossary on indicators of socioeconomic position used in health research published in the January issue of the journal Health Affairs.
Abstract
This is the second part of a glossary on indicators of socioeconomic position used in health research (the first part was published in the January issue of the journal).
Keywords
Medicine
Journal of Health and Social BehaviorSocial Conditions As Fundamental Causes of Disease
5,601 Citations1995Bruce G. Link, Jo C. Phelan
The LancetHealth inequalities among British civil servants: the Whitehall II study
3,605 Citations1991Michael Marmot, S. Stansfeld +8 more
There was an inverse association between employment grade and prevalence of angina, electrocardiogram evidence of ischaemia, and symptoms of chronic bronchitis, and self-perceived health status and symptoms were worse in subjects in lower status jobs.
International Journal of EpidemiologyA life course approach to chronic disease epidemiology: conceptual models, empirical challenges and interdisciplinary perspectives
2,838 Citations2002Yoav Ben‐Shlomo
A life course approach to chronic disease epidemiology is defined as the study of long-term effects on chronic disease risk of physical and social exposures during gestation, childhood, adolescence, young adulthood and later adult life, which includes studies of the biological, behavioural and psychosocial pathways that operate across an individual's life course.
Annual Review of Public HealthMeasuring Social Class in US Public Health Research: Concepts, Methodologies, and Guidelines
2,733 Citations1997Nancy Krieger, David R. Williams +1 more
Journal of Epidemiology & Community HealthMultilevel analyses of neighbourhood socioeconomic context and health outcomes: a critical review: Table 1
2,213 Citations2001Kate E. Pickett, M Pearl
The evidence for modest neighbourhood effects on health is fairly consistent despite heterogeneity of study designs, substitution of local area measures for neighbourhood measures and probable measurement error.
Social Science & MedicinePlace effects on health: how can we conceptualise, operationalise and measure them?
2,022 Citations2002Sally MacIntyre, Anne Ellaway +1 more
Using a framework of universal human needs as a basis for thinking about how places may influence health is suggested, and the testing of hypotheses about specific chains of causation that might link place of residence with health outcomes is recommended.
Journal of Epidemiology & Community HealthLife course epidemiology: Figure 1
1,999 Citations2003Diana Kuh, Y Ben-Shlomo +3 more
The aim of this glossary is to encourage a dialogue that will advance the life course perspective.
Epidemiologic ReviewsTHE MEASUREMENT OF SOCIAL CLASS IN EPIDEMIOLOGY
1,326 Citations1988Penny Liberatos, Bruce G. Link +1 more
American Journal of EpidemiologyGeocoding and Monitoring of US Socioeconomic Inequalities in Mortality and Cancer Incidence: Does the Choice of Area-based Measure and Geographic Level Matter?: The Public Health Disparities Geocoding Project
1,164 Citations2002Nancy Krieger
Diverse single-variable and composite area-based socioeconomic measures at the census tract, block group, and zip code level for Massachusetts and Rhode Island indicated that block group and tract socioeconomic measures performed comparably within and across both states, but zip code measures for several outcomes detected no gradients or gradients contrary to those observed with tract and block group measures.
The LancetSocioeconomic inequalities in morbidity and mortality in western Europe
1,031 Citations1997Johan P. Mackenbach, Anton E. Kunst +3 more
An absolute measure for inequalities in mortality, a risk difference, is calculated, which takes into account differences between countries in average rates of illhealth, and compares a broad lower with a broad upper socioeconomic group.
American Journal of Public HealthUS mortality by economic, demographic, and social characteristics: the National Longitudinal Mortality Study.
846 Citations1995Paul D. Sorlie, Eric Backlund +1 more
This study identified segments of the population in need of public health attention and demonstrated the importance of including these variables in morbidity and mortality studies.
International Journal of EpidemiologyWidening socioeconomic inequalities in mortality in six Western European countries
790 Citations2003Johan P. Mackenbach, Vivian Bos +8 more
Reducing socioeconomic inequalities in mortality in Western Europe critically depends upon speeding up mortality declines from cardiovascular diseases in lower socioeconomic groups, and countering mortality increases from several other causes of death in lower socio-economic groups.
Epidemiologic ReviewsChildhood Socioeconomic Circumstances and Cause-specific Mortality in Adulthood: Systematic Review and Interpretation
751 Citations2004Bruna Galobardes
The influence of exposures acting during critical periods of susceptibility may be modified by later life exposures, and the associations of birth weight with coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, and insulin resistance are stronger among those who become obese during adolescence or adulthood.
Journal of Epidemiology & Community HealthAre poor living conditions in childhood and adolescence an important risk factor for arteriosclerotic heart disease?
740 Citations1977A Forsdahl
The findings suggest that great poverty in childhood and adolescence followed by prosperity, is a risk factor for arteriosclerotic heart disease.
Journal of Epidemiology & Community HealthA glossary for multilevel analysis
676 Citations2002Ana V. Diez Roux
This glossary defines key concepts and terms used in multilevel analysis, which has recently emerged as a useful analytical technique in several fields, including public health and epidemiology.
BMJAdverse socioeconomic conditions in childhood and cause specific adult mortality: prospective observational study
635 Citations1998George Davey Smith, Carole Hart +2 more
Adverse socioeconomic circumstances in childhood have a specific influence on mortality from stroke and stomach cancer in adulthood, which is not due to the continuity of social disadvantage throughout life.
BMJLifetime socioeconomic position and mortality: prospective observational study
623 Citations1997George Davey Smith, Carole Hart +3 more
Assessment of the influence of socioeconomic position over a lifetime on risk factors for cardiovascular disease, on morbidity, and on mortality from various causes found participants' social class at the time of screening was more strongly associated than the other social class indicators with mortality from cancer and from non-cardiovascular, non-cancer causes.
Journal of Epidemiology & Community HealthChoosing area based socioeconomic measures to monitor social inequalities in low birth weight and childhood lead poisoning: The Public Health Disparities Geocoding Project (US)
600 Citations2003Nancy Krieger, J T Chen +4 more
Census tract or block group area based socioeconomic measures of economic deprivation could be meaningfully used in conjunction with US public health surveillance systems to enable or enhance monitoring of social inequalities in health in the United States.
Journal of Epidemiology & Community HealthIndividual social class, area-based deprivation, cardiovascular disease risk factors, and mortality: the Renfrew and Paisley Study.
545 Citations1998George Davey Smith, Carole Hart +3 more
Both the area-based deprivation indicator and individual social class were associated with generally less favourable profiles of cardiovascular disease risk factors at the time of the baseline screening examinations.
American Journal of EpidemiologyUse of Census-based Aggregate Variables to Proxy for Socioeconomic Group: Evidence from National Samples
486 Citations1998Arline T. Geronimus, John Bound
The authors estimate health outcome equations using samples from nationally representative data sets linked to census data and conclude that aggregate measures can not be interpreted as if they were microlevel variables nor should a specific aggregate measure be interpreted to represent the effects of what it is labeled.
The LancetThose confounded vitamins: what can we learn from the differences between observational versus randomised trial evidence?
446 Citations2004Debbie A. Lawlor, George Davey Smith +3 more
It is difficult to see why a combination of vitamin C with other vitamins should reduce its protective effects, if they were real, and in the case of other antioxidant vitamins, notably vitamin E, results of single-factor trials and observational studies show a similar discordance to those seen in the figure for vitamin C.
Journal of Epidemiology & Community HealthHow do types of employment relate to health indicators? Findings from the Second European Survey on Working Conditions
438 Citations2000Fernando G. Benavides, J Benach +2 more
Precarious employment was consistently and positively associated with job dissatisfaction but negatively associated with absenteeism and stress (as compared with full time permanent workers), and Fatigue, backache and muscular pains also tended to be positivelyassociated with precarious employment, particularly with fulltime precarious employment.
Social Science & MedicineCan we disentangle life course processes of accumulation, critical period and social mobility? An analysis of disadvantaged socio-economic positions and myocardial infarction in the Stockholm Heart Epidemiology Program
364 Citations2003Johan Hallqvist, John Lynch +3 more
A population based case-control study of all incident first events of myocardial infarction among men and women, living in the Stockholm region 1992-94 found a graded response to the accumulation of disadvantaged socio-economic positions over the life course and found evidence for effects of critical periods and of social mobility.
Social Science & MedicineSocial class, assets, organizational control and the prevalence of common groups of psychiatric disorders
305 Citations1998Carles Muntaner, William W. Eaton +3 more
Inequalities in assets and organizational control, as well as typical measures of social class, are associated with specific psychiatric disorders and can provide additional explanations for why social inequalities in psychiatric disorders occur.
Social Science & MedicineThe impact of childhood living conditions on illness and mortality in adulthood
304 Citations1993Olle Lundberg
Of the four factors analysed, conflicts in the family during upbringing is that most strongly related to illness later in life, as well as with mortality, which holds true when all four factors are included simultaneously in the model.
Public Health ReportsMonitoring Socioeconomic Inequalities in Sexually Transmitted Infections, Tuberculosis, and Violence: Geocoding and Choice of Area-Based Socioeconomic Measures—The Public Health Disparities Geocoding Project (US)
281 Citations2003Nancy Krieger, Pamela D. Waterman +3 more
Cross-sectional analysis of public health surveillance data, geocoded and linked to area-based socioeconomic measures generated from 1990 census tract, block group, and ZIP Code data indicated that Supplementing U.S. public health Surveillance systems with census tract or block group area- based socioeconomic measures of economic deprivation could greatly enhance monitoring and analysis of social inequalities in health in the United States.
Journal of Public HealthDeprivation and mortality: an alternative to social class?
245 Citations1989V Carstairs, Russell Morris
Evidence of area effects supports a proposal for area socioeconomic characteristics to be adopted as key variables in epidemiological analysis, and for an area classification to be designed and incorporated in the 1991 census output for use on a consistent basis.
JAMAEndangered Lives: Public Health in Victorian Britain
184 Citations1984Lester S. King
Endangered Lives gives a rich cross-section of such public health problems as they affected Great Britain in the last two thirds of the 19th century—the period associated with Queen Victoria.
Journal of Epidemiology & Community HealthSocioeconomic position in early life, birth weight, childhood cognitive function, and adult mortality. A longitudinal study of Danish men born in 1953
180 Citations2003Merete Osler, A-M N Andersen +4 more
The inverse association between father’s social class at time of birth and early adult mortality remains, however somewhat attenuated, after adjustment for birth weight and cognitive function.
International Journal of EpidemiologyWomen's exposure to early and later life socioeconomic disadvantage and coronary heart disease risk: the Stockholm Female Coronary Risk Study
176 Citations2001Sarah Wamala, John Lynch +1 more
Both early and later exposure to socioeconomic disadvantage were associated with increased CHD risk in women, and later life exposure seems to be more harmful for women's cardiovascular health than early life exposure to socio-economic disadvantage.
American Journal of EpidemiologySocial Inequalities and Atherosclerosis The Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study
152 Citations1995Ana V. Diez–Roux, F. Javier Nieto +3 more
Associations with clinical coronary heart disease persisted but associations with carotid wall thickness disappeared, suggesting that factors related to the clinical expression of lesions may vary by social class.
Journal of Epidemiology & Community HealthCensus based deprivation indices: their weighting and validation.
145 Citations1995David Gordon
Weightings are derived from the Breadline Britain in the 1990s survey to produce a census based deprivation index that estimates the percentage of poor households at electoral ward level and are shown to be highly correlated with both low income and morbidity as estimated from the 1991 census.
International Journal of EpidemiologyThe associations of social class and social stratification with patterns of general and mental health in a Spanish population
136 Citations2003Carles Muntañer, Carme Borrell +3 more
These findings highlight the potential health consequences of social class positions defined by power relations within the labour process and confirm that social class taps into parts of the social variation in health that are not captured by conventional measures of social stratification and education.
PubMedThe ESRC review of government social classifications.
134 Citations1997David Rose, Karen O’Reilly +1 more
BJOG An International Journal of Obstetrics & GynaecologyThe association of socio‐economic position across the life course and age at menopause: the British Women's Heart and Health Study
124 Citations2003Debbie A. Lawlor, Shah Ebrahim +1 more
Assessment of indicators of adverse socio‐economic position from across the life course with age at menopause finds associations between these indicators and adverse socio-economic position are found to be positive.
Journal of Public HealthThe new UK national statistics socio-economic classification (NS-SEC); investigating social class differences in self-reported health status
123 Citations2000Tarani Chandola, C Jenkinson
The NS-SEC shows significant social class differences in health, further evidence for its construct validity, as it is grounded in theory, and is likely to prove a valuable tool for explanations of inequalities in health.
American Journal of EpidemiologyEnvironmental Tobacco Smoke and Breastfeeding Duration
106 Citations1997Bernardo Lessa Horta, César G. Victora +2 more
Maternal smoking was strongly associated with breastfeeding duration, even after adjustment for confounding, and the first report of a possible effect of environmental tobacco smoke on breastfeeding duration was reported.
Journal of Epidemiology & Community HealthComparing individual-based and household-based measures of social class to assess class inequalities in women's health: a methodological study of 684 US women.
95 Citations1999Nancy Krieger, J. T. Chen +1 more
Class inequalities in health, comparing women categorised as working class with non-working class, generally were stronger using the gender neutral household class measure, compared with the conventional household or individual class measure; in the case of "fair or poor" health, the respective odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals were 1.9.
Journal of Epidemiology & Community HealthRelation between number of siblings and adult mortality and stroke risk: 25 year follow up of men in the Collaborative study
94 Citations2003Carole Hart, G Davey Smith
Number of siblings is strongly related to mortality risk, but as it is also related to many risk factors, adjustment for these can generally explain the relation with mortality.
Social Science & MedicineSocioeconomic inequality and psychopathology: Are socioeconomic status and social class interchangeable?
87 Citations1997Tamar Wohlfarth
Using data from a large scale epidemiological survey that was conducted in Israel, it is shown that SES and social class measures are empirically distinct and that they explain different parts of the variance of psychopathology.
Journal of Epidemiology & Community HealthMeasuring social class differences in cancer patient survival: is it necessary to control for social class differences in general population mortality? A Finnish population-based study.
87 Citations1998Paul W. Dickman, Anssi Auvinen +2 more
The degree of variation in relative survival resulting from social class decreased, although did not disappear, after controlling for social class differences in general mortality, and it is recommended that relative survival rates are used with expected survival adjusted forsocial class when studying social class variation in cancer patient survival.
Social Science & MedicineSocial inequality in coronary heart disease: a comparison of occupational classifications
77 Citations1998Tarani Chandola
Results from a longitudinal study of adults in Britain show that the Cambridge scale has the strongest association with CHD and part of its strength is due to its strong association withCHD related health behaviours.
American Journal of Public HealthAssociation Between Childhood Socioeconomic Status and Coronary Heart Disease Risk Among Postmenopausal Women: Findings From the British Women's Heart and Health Study
76 Citations2004Debbie A. Lawlor, George Davey Smith +1 more
The association between adverse childhood Ses and coronary heart disease is in part mediated through insulin resistance, which may be influenced by poor childhood nutrition, and in part through the association between childhood SES and adult behavioral risk factors.
Social Science & MedicineBorn out of wedlock and never married—it breaks a man's heart
55 Citations2003Bitte Modin
The results demonstrated a statistically significant excess mortality among men born outside marriage, which could not be explained by either social class of origin or birth weight for gestational age, and it is argued that these findings should be understood in terms of the childhood social stigma that the illegitimate children experienced.
Social Science & MedicineSocial class and substance use disorders: The value of social class as distinct from socioeconomic status
54 Citations1998Tamar Wohlfarth, Wim van den Brink
The relationship between social class and substance use disorders (SUDs) is explored and compared to the relationship between SES and SUDs and it appears that most disorders have an onset subsequent to entry into the current job, indicating that ownership plays a causal role in the onset of Suds rather than the other way around.
Sociology of Health & IllnessClass, stratification and inequalities in health: a comparison of the Registrar‐General’s Social Classes and the Cambridge Scale
50 Citations1999Kenneth Prandy
The LancetIs control at work the key to socioeconomic gradients in mortality?
39 Citations1997George Davey Smith, Seeromanie Harding
BMJHealth Inequalities: Lifecourse Approaches
38 Citations2003J. P. Mackenbach
This book is a selection of George Davey Smith's papers on health inequalities published between 1990 and 2002, loosely constructed around the new theme of “lifecourse approaches”—attempts to understand health inequalities from the cumulation and interaction of factors acting early and later in life.
Socioeconomic differentials
36 Citations1997George Davey Smith
PathologyGastric carcinoma distal to the cardia: a review of the epidemiological pathology of the precusors to a preventable cancer
32 Citations2002Grant N. Stemmermann, Cecilia M. Fenoglio‐Preiser
The anatomical changes that characterise the step-by-step evolution of a process that begins in childhood and culminates in invasive cancer in middle and old age are described.
International Journal of Health ServicesClass Position, Work Experience, and Health
30 Citations1986Michael Schwalbe, Clifford L. Staples
A Marxist analysis of the relationships between class position, work experience, the psychological effects of this experience, and subsequent health outcomes is developed, linking capitalism to ill health for those in working-class positions.
Annals of EpidemiologyIs birth order associated with adult mortality?
27 Citations1996Stephen O’Leary
Evidence that birth order is associated with adult mortality in this highly intelligent, middle-class cohort of intellectually gifted children in California is not provided.
EUR Research Repository (Erasmus University Rotterdam)Occupational class and cause specific mortality in middle aged men in 11 European countries: comparison of population based studies
26 Citations1998Kunst, Anton E, Groenhof, Feikje +2 more
American Journal of Public HealthPsychotic inpatients' social class and their first admission to state or private psychiatric Baltimore hospitals.
20 Citations1994Carles Muntañer, Paula Wolyniec +2 more
Social class differences were investigated among patients admitted to public and private psychiatric hospitals and patients with low levels of skills/credentials were found to be more likely than patients with higher levels to be admitted to state psychiatric hospitals.
UCL Discovery (University College London)Is the association between parity and coronary heart disease due to biological effects of pregnancy or adverse lifestyle risk factors associated with child-rearing? - Findings from the British women's heart and health study and the British regional heart study
13 Citations2003Lawlor, DA, Emberson, JR +5 more
Journal of Epidemiology & Community HealthExplanations for differences in health outcomes betweenneighbourhoods of varying socioeconomic level
12 Citations2001Sijmen A. Reijneveld
There is fairly consistent evidence for modest neighbourhood effects on health, because 23 of the 25 reviewed studies report a statistically significant association between at least one measure of social environment and a health outcome, after adjusting for individual level socioeconomic status.
American Journal of EpidemiologyChildhood and Adult Socioeconomic Conditions and 31-Year Mortality Risk in Women
9 Citations2004Jennifer Beebe‐Dimmer
Both early and later life indicators of socioeconomic position contribute to increased mortality risk among socioeconomically disadvantaged women, but these effects appear stronger for cardiovascular mortality.
BJOG An International Journal of Obstetrics & GynaecologyThe association of socio-economic position across the life course and age at menopause: the British Women's Heart and Health Study
8 Citations2003D Lawlor
