Measures of socioeconomic position in studies of health inequalities

Nordic Global Health Talks

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This talk is by Marie Hella Lindberg, UiT The Arctic University of Norway

There is a consistent finding that the higher the socioeconomic position, the better the health outcomes. Choosing the indicator of socioeconomic position is crucial in analysing and understanding socioeconomic inequalities in health. However, the choice of socioeconomic position indicator is often poorly motivated, which hampers the comparability and interpretability across studies and settings. This talk will highlight the differences between various indicators of socioeconomic position and their importance in studying inequalities in health.

Additional educational resources

Galobardes B, Shaw M, Lawlor DA, et al. Indicators of socioeconomic position (part 1). Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health 2006;60:7-12. https://doi.org/10.1136/jech.2004.023531

Galobardes B, Shaw M, Lawlor DA, et al. Indicators of socioeconomic position (part 2). Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health 2006;60:95-101. https://doi.org/10.1136/jech.2004.028092

Howe LD, Galobardes B, Matijasevich A, Gordon D, Johnston D, Onwujekwe O, Patel R, Webb EA, Lawlor DA, Hargreaves JR. Measuring socio-economic position for epidemiological studies in low-and middle-income countries: a methods of measurement in epidemiology paper. International journal of epidemiology. 2012 Jun 1;41(3):871-86. https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dys037

Demakakos P, Nazroo J, Breeze E, Marmot M. Socioeconomic status and health: the role of subjective social status. Social science & medicine. 2008 Jul 1;67(2):330-40. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2008.03.038

About Nordic Global Health Talks

Nordic Global Health Talks is a monthly webinar series about global health research at Nordic universities, hosted by the Nordic Network on Global Health. It is free and open to everyone interested in knowing more about Nordic global health research, education and collaborative projects.

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