Subjective socioeconomic status: an alternative to objective socioeconomic status.
BMC Med Res Methodol
; 23(1): 73, 2023 03 28.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-36977997
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
Subjective "ladder" measurements of socio-economic status (SES) are easy-to-administer tools that ask respondents to rate their own SES, allowing them to evaluate their own material resources and determine where it places them relative to their community. Here, we sought to compare the MacArthur Scale of Subjective Social status to the WAMI, an objective measure of SES that includes data on water and sanitation, asset ownership, education, and income.METHODS:
Leveraging a study of 595 tuberculosis patients in Lima, Peru, we compared the MacArthur ladder score to the WAMI score using weighted Kappa scores and Spearman's rank correlation coefficient. We identified outliers that fell outside the 95th percentile and assessed the durability of the inconsistencies between scores by re-testing a subset of participants. We then used Akaike information criterion (AIC) to compare the predictability of logistic regression models evaluating the association between the two SES scoring systems and history of asthma.RESULTS:
The correlation coefficient between the MacArthur ladder and WAMI scores was 0.37 and the weighted Kappa was 0.26. The correlation coefficients differed by less than 0.04 and the Kappa ranged from 0.26 to 0.34, indicating fair agreement. When we replaced the initial MacArthur ladder scores with retest scores, the number of individuals with disagreements between the two scores decreased from 21 to 10 and the correlation coefficient and weighted Kappa both increased by at least 0.03. Lastly, we found that when we categorized WAMI and MacArthur ladder scores into three groups, both had a linear trend association with history of asthma with effect sizes and AICs that differed by less than 15% and 2 points, respectively.CONCLUSION:
Our findings demonstrated fair agreement between the MacArthur ladder and WAMI scores. The agreement between the two SES measurements increased when they were further categorized into 3-5 categories, the form in which SES is often used in epidemiologic studies. The MacArthur score also performed similarly to WAMI in predicting a socio-economically sensitive health outcome. Researchers should consider subjective SES tools as an alternative method for measuring SES, particularly in large health studies where data collection is a burden.Palavras-chave
Texto completo:
1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Classe Social
/
Renda
Tipo de estudo:
Prognostic_studies
/
Risk_factors_studies
Aspecto:
Determinantes_sociais_saude
Limite:
Humans
País/Região como assunto:
America do sul
/
Peru
Idioma:
En
Revista:
BMC Med Res Methodol
Assunto da revista:
MEDICINA
Ano de publicação:
2023
Tipo de documento:
Article
País de afiliação:
Estados Unidos