Indicators of socioeconomic status for adolescents: the WHO Health Behaviour in School-aged Children Survey

Abstract

Many indicators of socioeconomic status used for adults are inappropriate for use in research on adolescents. In a school-based survey of 4079 Scottish schoolchildren using a self-completion questionnaire, over 20% of 11-15 year olds were unable to provide a substantive response on father's occupation. In contrast, indicators derived to construct a family affluence scale, which included car ownership, telephone ownership and the child having their own unshared bedroom, resulted in a 98% response rate; and 92% of children responded to a question on their weekly spending money. The intercorrelations between the conventional indicator of father's occupation and each family affluence and spending money were examined, and their associations with a range of health indicators and health behaviour measures compared. Father's occupational status and family affluence were moderately correlated and showed broadly similar patterns of association with the selected health measures although there were also some distinct differences. Child's spending money was only weakly correlated with father's occupation and showed rather different patterns of association with health measures. A case is made for the use of multiple indicators of socioeconomic status in adolescent health surveys, and it is argued that that the family affluence scale provides a useful and easily applied additional indicator to father's occupation or an alternative measure of socioeconomic background where occupational data are unavailable.

Dietary habits of Palestinian adolescents and associated sociodemographic characteristics in Ramallah, Nablus and Hebron governorates

“…It has been proven to be useful in this age group as many adolescents are unable to provide information on their parents' occupation and income (23) . The amenities Table 4a Multivariate linear regression models of the relationship between sociodemographic characteristics and food scores in a sample of Palestinian adolescents in Ramallah, Nablus and Hebron governorates (n 2952)-Animal food score--Dairy products scorey Western food scoreJ Sweets and salty snacks scorez -The regression models are age adjusted.…”

Socio-demographic differences in food habits and preferences of school adolescents in Jiangsu Province, China

“…The most commonly used measures of social class in epidemiological study are occupation, education and income (Liberatos et al, 1988), but it is reported that in regard Food habits of Chinese adolescents Z Shi et al to self-administered questionnaires to adolescents, a large percentage are unable to provide a substantive response on father's occupation (Currie et al, 1997). Under these circumstances, the WHO Health Behaviour in School-aged Children Survey adopted the 'family affluence scale' as an additional indicator of SES based on household possessions (Currie et al, 1997(Currie et al, , 2004.…”

“…Under these circumstances, the WHO Health Behaviour in School-aged Children Survey adopted the 'family affluence scale' as an additional indicator of SES based on household possessions (Currie et al, 1997(Currie et al, , 2004. The same approach has also been used in developing countries (Durkin et al, 1994;Stene et al, 1999).…”

“…As it is difficult to get the information on household income in the research area, we chose to create an index of household SES as described in the WHO Health Behaviour in School-aged Children Survey (Currie et al, 1997(Currie et al, , 2004. The SES index was developed especially for this province and the economic level of its inhabitants.…”

Pathways to Outdoor Recreation, Physical Activity, and Delinquency Among Urban Latino Adolescents

“…SES was assessed using the Family Affluence Scale [51]; the scale ranged from 0 to 9, with higher scores indicating greater SES. The low self-control scale, a previously validated scale [52] widely used in the criminology literature, ranged from 1 to 3, with higher scores indicating lower self-control.…”