Over the past two decades, exponential growth of empirical research has fueled markedly increased concern about health disparities. In this paper, we show the progression of research on socioeconomic status (SES) and health through several eras. The first era reflected an implicit threshold model of the association of poverty and health. The second era produced evidence for a graded association between SES and health where each improvement in education, income, occupation, or wealth is associated with better health outcomes. Moving from description of the association to exploration of pathways, the third era focused on mechanisms linking SES and health, whereas the fourth era expanded on mechanisms to consider multilevel influences, and a fifth era added a focus on interactions among factors, not just their main effects or contributions as mediators. Questions from earlier eras remain active areas of research, while later eras add depth and complexity.

Background: Based on the hypothesis that a vicious cycle of dental fear exists, whereby the consequences of fear tend to maintain that fear, the relationship between dental fear, self-reported oral health status and the use of dental services was explored.

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Background: This study aimed to describe both the prevalence of dental fear in Australia and to explore the relationship between dental fear and a number of demographic, socio‐economic, oral health, insurance and service usage variables. Methods: A telephone interview survey of a random sample of 7312 Australian residents, aged five years and over, from all states and territories. Results: The prevalence of high dental fear in the entire sample was 16.1 per cent. A higher percentage of females than males reported high fear (HF). Adults aged 40–64 years old had the highest prevalence of high dental fear with those adults aged 80+ years old having the least. There were also differences between low fear (LF) and HF groups in relation to socio‐economic status (SES), with people from higher SES groups generally having less fear. People with HF were more likely to be dentate, have more missing teeth, be covered by dental insurance and have a longer time since their last visit to a dentist. Conclusions: This study found a high prevalence of dental fear within a contemporary Australian population with numerous differences between individuals with HF and LF in terms of socio‐economic, socio‐demographic and self‐reported oral health status characteristics.

Context:The rise in obesity in the United States may slow or even reverse the long-term trend of increasing life expectancy. Like many risk factors for disease, obesity results from behavior and shows a social gradient. Especially among women, obesity is more common among lower-income individuals, those with less education, and some ethnic/racial minorities. Methods:This article examines the underlying assumptions and implications for policy and the interventions of the two predominant models used to explain the causes of obesity and also suggests a synthesis that avoids "blaming the victim" while acknowledging the role of individuals' health behaviors in weight maintenance. Findings:(1) The medical model focuses primarily on treatment, addressing individuals' personal behaviors as the cause of their obesity. An underlying assumption is that as independent agents, individuals make informed choices. Interventions are providing information and motivating individuals to modify their behaviors. (2) The public health model concentrates more on prevention and sees the roots of obesity in an obesogenic environment awash in influences that lead individuals to engage in health-damaging behaviors. Interventions are modifying environmental forces through social policies. (3) There is a tension between empowering individuals to manage their weight through diet and exercise and blaming them for failure to do so. Patterns of obesity by race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status highlight this tension. (4) Environments differ in their health-promoting resources; for example, poorer communities have fewer

This volume is the product of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Network on Socioeconomic Status (SES) and Health. For the last 12 years the network has provided a structure through which scientists from a wide range of disciplines jointly addressed the question: How does SES get under the skin to affect health? In 1999, early in our life as a network, we organized a conference held at the National Institutes of Health on SES and health in industrialized nations. The conference presentations were published as a special volume of the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.1 Since that time, network members have worked together to provide answers to the central questions about the relationship of SES and health. In the process, numerous articles and books reflecting our work have been published. 2 The current volume builds on these findings and stands as a bookend to the former Annals volume, presenting what we have learned in our decade of work since the 1999 conference, and our thoughts on the current state of knowledge about the pathways by which SES affects health.

This study aimed to evaluate inequalities in children's dental caries experience among socioeconomic status (SES) groups and to investigate effects of exposure to fluoride in water on those inequalities. Cross-sectional data were obtained from 6704 Queensland children aged 5-12 years and 6814 South Australian children aged 5-15 years. School dental therapists and dentists recorded dmfs and DMFS data. A questionnaire to parents sought information about household SES and each child's lifetime exposure to fluoridated drinking water. SES fluoride exposure and multiplicative interactions between the two were used as explanatory variables in least squares models in which dmfs and DMFs were dependent variables. Additive interactions were evaluated by calculating the excess rate of disease. In both states, children from low SES groups (categorized by household income or parental education) had higher mean dmfs and DMFS values than children from high SES groups (P < 0.01). Independent effects of income and education remained significant (P < 0.01) after controlling for exposure to fluoride in drinking water. In Queensland, there was a significant multiplicative interaction whereby SES inequalities were lower among children exposed to fluoride: dmfs ratios between low- and high-income groups ranged among ages from 1.54 to 3.56 for children with no exposure to fluoride and from 0.84 to 2.07 for children with lifetime exposure to fluoride. Multiplicative interactions were not statistically significant in South Australia or when DMFS was the dependent variable. However, additive interactions were consistent and most pronounced for deciduous teeth in both States. Absolute differences in caries experience between low and high SES children were greater among non-exposed groups due to the higher underlying levels of caries experience of children with no exposure to fluoride in water.

Edentulism is a key indicator of the oral health status of populations and is associated with reduced quality of life. Objective: To describe temporal trends in the prevalence of edentulism in the Australian adult population.