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Social/Economic Status and Disease

Social/Economic Status and Disease M. G. Marmot, M. Kogevinas, and M. A. Elston Department of Community Medicine, University College London and Middlesex Hospital Medical School, 66-72 Gower Street, London WClE 6EA, England SOCIAL CLASS AND EPIDEMIOLOGY Scope of This Review In epidemiological studies, there is a tendency to include social class, or socio-economic status, with as much regularity but as little thought as with the inclusion of gender.All modern analyses must now "control for" social class as they do for sex.To the tired old epithet that an epidemiologist is someone broken down by age and sex, we must now add " ...and social position." The large social differences in mortality in many societies make social class analyses of crucial importance, but the largely unthinking use of social class is unfortunate. Not only may it contribute little to understanding of factors affecting health and disease, it may actually retard our understanding. In this review, we start with why we look at social class and touch on the issues of what social class is and its meaning. Drawing largely on data from England and Wales, we examine trends over time.We use data from England and Wales not only because they are close at hand, http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Annual Review of Public Health Annual Reviews

Social/Economic Status and Disease

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Publisher
Annual Reviews
Copyright
Copyright 1987 Annual Reviews. All rights reserved
Subject
Review Articles
ISSN
0163-7525
eISSN
1545-2093
DOI
10.1146/annurev.pu.08.050187.000551
pmid
3555518
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

M. G. Marmot, M. Kogevinas, and M. A. Elston Department of Community Medicine, University College London and Middlesex Hospital Medical School, 66-72 Gower Street, London WClE 6EA, England SOCIAL CLASS AND EPIDEMIOLOGY Scope of This Review In epidemiological studies, there is a tendency to include social class, or socio-economic status, with as much regularity but as little thought as with the inclusion of gender.All modern analyses must now "control for" social class as they do for sex.To the tired old epithet that an epidemiologist is someone broken down by age and sex, we must now add " ...and social position." The large social differences in mortality in many societies make social class analyses of crucial importance, but the largely unthinking use of social class is unfortunate. Not only may it contribute little to understanding of factors affecting health and disease, it may actually retard our understanding. In this review, we start with why we look at social class and touch on the issues of what social class is and its meaning. Drawing largely on data from England and Wales, we examine trends over time.We use data from England and Wales not only because they are close at hand,

Journal

Annual Review of Public Health – Annual Reviews

Published: May 1, 1987

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