The individual deprivation EPICES score is reliable. Deprivation was related to excess death rate, which clearly indicates that deprivation is a determinant factor that should be considered systematically by health policy makers and health-care providers.
In French Health Examination Centres, populations in deprived situation were usually defined by administrative criteria The aim of the study was to investigate whether EPICES, a new individual index of deprivation, was more strongly related to health status than an administrative classification. The EPICES score was calculated on the basis of 11 weighted questions related to material and social deprivation. Participants were 197, 389 men and women, aged over 18, encountered in 2002 in French Health Examination Centres. Relationships between health status, health-related behaviours, access to health care, EPICES and the administrative classification of deprivation were analyzed by logistic regression. The associations between EPICES and the study variables were stronger than those observed for the administrative definition. The comparison also showed socially disadvantaged people with poor health identified by the EPICES score who were not by the administrative classification. These results showed that the EPICES score can be a useful tool to improve the identification of deprived people having health problems associated to deprivation.
L'objectif est de mesurer les relations entre précarité et facteurs de risque. La précarité est mesurée quantitativement par le score EPICES : 11 questions binaires mesurant les difficultés sociales et matérielles. Des relations score-dépendantes statistiquement significatives sont observées pour les facteurs de risque de cancer : tabac, alcool, sédentarité, obésité, dosages des gammaGT et du volume globulaire moyen, non-suivi gynécologique, non-suivi médi-cal. Le score EPICES permet d'identifier des patients à risque de mauvais pronostic nécessitant un accompagnement dans les parcours de dépistage comme de soins.Abstract: The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between social precariousness and risk factors. Social precariousness was assessed with the ''EPICES score'', an individual and quantitative scale based on 11 questions regarding material and social problems. Statistically significant score-dependent relationships were observed for cancer risk factors: smoking, alcohol drinking, lack of physical activity, obesity, GGT, mean corpuscular volume, lack of gynaecological examination, and no access to health care. The ''EPICES score'' should be used to detect populations at risk of bad prognosis, who need specific health care.
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