Neighborhood-level measures of socioeconomic status are more correlated with individual-level measures in urban areas compared with less urban areas

Associations between neighborhood socioeconomic deprivation and severity of depression: Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 2011–2014

“…The relationship between individual- and neighborhood-level socioeconomic disadvantage is complex. Correlations exist between the two, with greater correlation existing between individual and neighborhood socioeconomic measures in large metropolitan and suburban areas of the US ( Xie et al, 2020 ). This relationship may be clarified with context for past and current individual- and neighborhood-level socioeconomic disadvantage, such as by getting more person-centered data regarding length of residence.…”

“…Further, individual-level characteristics are known to affect and be affected by neighborhood. For neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage, inadequate adjustment for individual-level SES is of concern given the correlations that exist between living in a neighborhood with similar socioeconomic position as individual SES ( Xie, Hubbard, & Himes, 2020 ). All of the studies in the 2015 review, for instance, controlled for individual-level SES factors in some capacity, including income, poverty, education, and employment, although residual confounding may still be a concern ( Richardson et al, 2015 ).…”

Association of Early and Late Hospital Readmissions with a Novel Housing-Based Socioeconomic Measure

“…While community level SES indices are widely available from governmental agencies such as the US Census Bureau; they suffer from lack of granularity, wide variations of individual SES within the aggregated data, and poor classification accuracy for individuals. 24 – 26 , 55 On the other hand, individual SES indices are traditionally more difficult to obtain and potentially biased because they rely on self-report of private data. HOUSES avoids some of these downfalls because it relies on the subject's address and the county assessors public housing data, both of which are generally available.…”

“… 22 , 23 Individual SES within aggregated proxies such as census blocks or zip codes often varies widely, particularly in rural areas, and only results in correct quintile classification 29% of the time (an example of misclassification bias). 24 – 26 Thus, to address readmission risk, better tools to assess SES are needed. To meet this need, an individual-level housing-based SES measure, termed HOUSES, was developed.…”

Describing and assessing a new method of approximating categorical individual‐level income using community‐level income from the census (weighting by income probabilities)

“…The most common and conventional implementation of this approach assigns individuals the median income of their communities of residence. [1][2][3][4] The infidelity between community-level (aggregate) and individual-level income has been documented in a broad range of settings [5][6][7][8][9] and can lead to large numbers of income misclassifications. 3,10,11 Nonetheless, because individual-level income proxied using median community-level income can often explain at least some of the variability observed in study outcomes, 3 and the lack of reasonable alternatives, such an approach is generally accepted.…”