Development and Initial Testing of a New Socioeconomic Status Measure Based on Housing Data

Abstract

Socioeconomic status (SES) has been associated with many health outcomes. Commonly used datasets such as medical records often lack data on SES but do include address information. The authors sought to determine whether an SES measure derived from housing characteristics is associated with other SES measures and outcomes known to be associated with SES. The data come from a telephone survey of parents/ guardians of children aged 1-17 years who resided in Olmsted County, Minnesota, and Jackson County, Missouri. Seven variables related to housing and six neighborhood characteristics obtained from local government assessor's offices in Olmsted County, Minnesota, were appended to survey responses. An SES index derived from housing characteristics (hereafter, HOUSES) was constructed using principal components factor analysis. For criterion validity, we assessed Pearson's correlation coefficients between HOUSES and other SES measures, including self-reported parents' educational levels, income, Hollingshead Index, and Nakao-Treas Index. For construct validity, we determined the association between HOUSES and outcomes, risks of low birth weight, overweight, and smoking exposure at home. We applied HOUSES to subjects in another community by formulating HOUSES from housing data of subjects in Jackson County, Missouri, using the same statistical algorithm as HOUSES for subjects in Olmsted County, Minnesota. We found that HOUSES had modest to good correlation with other SES measures. Overall, as hypothesized, HOUSES was inversely associated with outcome measures assessed among subjects from both counties. HOUSES may be a useful surrogate measure of individual SES in epidemiologic research, especially when SES measures for individuals are not available.

Comparison of individual-level versus area-level socioeconomic measures in assessing health outcomes of children in Olmsted County, Minnesota

“…More than 75% of the adult respondents were women, and 89% of the subjects were white (median age, 41 years). The sociodemographic characteristics of the study subjects’ children were previously reported 29. Overall, except for gender, the sociodemographic characteristics of the study subjects were similar to Olmsted County population as a whole.…”

“…Details have been described previously 29. Olmsted County is located 90 miles southeast of Minneapolis.…”

Generalizability of Epidemiological Findings and Public Health Decisions: An Illustration From the Rochester Epidemiology Project

“…Some research has been conducted in the Olmsted County population to develop new surrogate mea-sures of socioeconomic status to be used for stratification or for adjustment in statistical analyses. 55,56 CONCLUSION Extrapolations and generalizations from studies in any single selected population must be judged on a study-by-study basis and should consider specific demographic or socioeconomic variables relevant to the study question. We provide an example of analyses and comparisons that may guide the generalization of epidemiological findings from a single population to other populations or to the entire United States.…”

Effects of Levothyroxine Therapy on Pregnancy Outcomes in Women with Subclinical Hypothyroidism

“…For women who were residents of Olmsted County, MN, the team calculated the HOUsing-based SES measures index (HOUSES), a validated socioeconomic measure. HOUSES is a composite index that is derived from individual housing features (housing value, square footage, and the number of bedrooms and bathrooms) by linking address information of patients to enumerated real property data that are available from the Assessor's Office of local government; higher values represent better socioeconomic status (18). Information regarding personal history of thyroid disease (not on thyroid hormone therapy), diabetes mellitus, hypertension, pregnancy loss, and preterm delivery was also collected.…”