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Research

Research Studies in Pension

Factor Affecting Retirement Mortality (FARM)

This FARM site consists of

• an Introduction
• an Abstract
• a Bibliography of research papers
• a collection of Summaries of the research papers.

Use the Table of Summaries to link to the summaries either by author or by risk factor.

Abstract | Bibliography | Introduction | Table of Summaries

Measuring Social Inequalities in Health

Lee, P., 1995. Public Health Reports, 110:302–305.

This paper reports on a meeting held to discuss the effect of socio–economic factors on public health policy. It aimed to suggest means of improving the tools for evaluating socio–economic gradients in health and creating and refining measures that could be used, with particular reference to changes in society.

There is a known relationship between socio–economic position and social, limited, as many US public health data sets do not contain socio–economic variables at all. This is as a consequence of the assumption that the United States is a "classless" society. The paper suggests that improvements in the collection and reporting of socio–economic data are required.

The report highlights the problem of determining whether and how data should be gathered on income, wealth, education and/or occupation and if this data should be gathered on individuals, households or neighborhoods. This would permit sharper distinctions among contributing causes of social inequalities in health.

Societal changes should also be considered. In the past, most measures of socio– economic position have been based upon the model of the white European heterosexual nuclear family in which the male head–of–household is the sole (or chief) wage earner. Society today is much more diverse and therefore the inclusion of those not in the labor force (e.g. children, unemployed, elderly), in non–traditional households (e.g. lesbian, gay) or in two–wage households may lead to a requirement for different socio–economic measures. The paper also draws attention to the relationship of race, ethnicity, sex and age to social class and questions if this affects the validity of using the same measures of socio–economic position for such groups.

The paper recommends the routine collection of detailed socio–economic data in order to facilitate greater understanding of the links between inequalities in morbidity and mortality and inequalities in socio–economic position. It is considered desirable that a core set of socio– economic measures is used to permit comparison of results and better assessment of the degree and importance of social inequalities in health. It is suggested that occupation should be the core socio–economic variable as not only does it reflect educational attainment and income, it also highlights the economic structure of a country. However, additional supplementary information, such as, characteristics of employment, other sources of income or wealth and the size and composition of the household supported would enhance the often crude categories obtained from occupational data alone.

The author concluded that such considerations and improvements would assist in uncovering the reasons for disparities and enable more targeted and cost–effective health planning.