RESUMO
BACKGROUND: Subjective socioeconomic status is robustly associated with many measures of health and well-being. The MacArthur Scale of Subjective Social Status (i.e., the MacArthur ladder) is the most widely used measure of this construct, but it remains unclear what exactly the MacArthur ladder measures. PURPOSE: The present research sought to explore the social and economic factors that underlie responses to the MacArthur ladder and its relationship to health. METHODS: We investigated this issue by examining the relationship between scores on the MacArthur ladder and measures of economic circumstances and noneconomic social status, as well as health and well-being measures, in healthy adults in the USA. RESULTS: In three studies (total N = 1,310) we found evidence that economic circumstances and social status are distinct constructs that have distinct associations with scores on the MacArthur ladder. We found that both factors exhibit distinct associations with measures of health and well-being and accounted for the association between the MacArthur ladder and each measure of health and well-being. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that the MacArthur ladder's robust predictive validity may result from the fact that it measures two factors-economic circumstances and social status-that are each independently associated with health outcomes. These findings provide a novel perspective on the large body of literature that uses the MacArthur ladder and suggests health researchers should do more to disentangle the social and economic aspects of subjective socioeconomic status.
Past research has found that people's subjective perception of their own socioeconomic status (SES) is associated with their health and well-being, even after controlling for traditional measures of SES such as income. But researchers still do not know why. One possibility is that subjective SES is simply a different measure of SES. Another is that it measures social status, separate from economic circumstances. We investigated this question using the MacArthur Scale of Subjective Social Status, which measures how people see their place in society. Across three studies using 1,300 adults in the USA, we found that the MacArthur Ladder measures two distinct factors: (i) economic circumstances, as measured by their income, education, housing, etc. and (ii) social status as measured by relative judgements of power, control, social influence, and their standing in their community and society. Both of these aspects of SES uniquely predict health and well-being. Our investigation demonstrates that the MacArthur ladder is good at predicting health outcomes because it measures both economic circumstances and social status. This new insight can help health researchers better understand the effects of social and economic factors on health, and to measure them more precisely.
RESUMO
Racial disparities in health are a major public health problem in the United States, especially when comparing chronic disease morbidity and mortality for Black versus White Americans. These health disparities are primarily due to insidious anti-Black racism that permeates American history, current culture and institutions, and interpersonal interactions. But how does racism get under the skull and the skin to influence brain and bodily processes that impact the health of Black Americans? In the present article, we present a model describing the possible neural and inflammatory mechanisms linking racism and health. We hypothesize that racism influences neural activity and connectivity in the salience and default mode networks of the brain and disrupts interactions between these networks and the executive control network. This pattern of neural functioning in turn leads to greater sympathetic nervous system signaling, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activation, and increased expression of genes involved in inflammation, ultimately leading to higher levels of proinflammatory cytokines in the body and brain. Over time, these neural and physiological responses can lead to chronic physical and mental health conditions, disrupt well-being, and cause premature mortality. Given that research in this area is underdeveloped to date, we emphasize opportunities for future research that are needed to build a comprehensive mechanistic understanding of the brain-body pathways linking anti-Black racism and health. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).