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A Researcher's Guide to the National Statistics Socio-Economic Clasification
... For the ADHS, social class was derived from the occupation of the respondent, based on the National Statistics Socioeconomic Classification (NS-SEC), which is derived from the household reference person's (HRP) occupational unit group and employment status, wherein the HRP is defined as the person responsible for owning or renting the accommodation. It was available as an ordinal variable in eight analytical categories; (i) higher managerial/professional, (ii) lower managerial/professional, (iii) intermediate, (iv) small employers and account workers, (v) lower supervisory and technical, (vi) semi-routine, (vii) routine, (viii) never worked and long term unemployed [22]. This was further collapsed into five categories to represent~20% of the sample in each category (Table 3). ...
... As a result, overall, the information was not comparable, nor did it provide a gradient to facilitate the use of the SII/RII. Therefore, occupation-based social class was the next best choice for the socioeconomic variable after income, as it is widely used to measure socioeconomic gradients in the UK and has been previously used as a proxy measure in the absence of income-related data [22][23][24]. Moreover, it is derived from the HRP's occupational unit group and employment status, wherein the HRP is defined as the person responsible for owning or renting the accommodation. ...
... However, our findings are hypothesis-generating, and the possible explanations to our findings require further investigation. Another limitation is the inconsistent use of socioeconomic measures between Canada and the US versus the UK, in that the latter uses an occupation-based social class measure of socioeconomic position, which despite being widely used to describe socioeconomic gradients in the UK [22,38], its direct comparability to household income is a limitation. However, occupation-based socioeconomic data has previously been used as a proxy measure in the absence of income-related data in research based on social stratification [23]. ...
The objective of this study was to quantify the magnitude of absolute and relative oral health inequality in countries with similar socio-political environments, but differing oral health care systems such as Canada, the United States (US), and the United Kingdom (UK), in the first decade of the new millennium. Clinical oral health data were obtained from the Canadian
... For the ADHS, social class was derived from the occupation of the respondent, based on the National Statistics Socioeconomic Classification (NS-SEC), which is derived from the household reference person's (HRP) occupational unit group and employment status, wherein the HRP is defined as the person responsible for owning or renting the accommodation. It was available as an ordinal variable in eight analytical categories; (i) higher managerial/professional, (ii) lower managerial/professional, (iii) intermediate, (iv) small employers and account workers, (v) lower supervisory and technical, (vi) semi-routine, (vii) routine, (viii) never worked and long term unemployed [22]. This was further collapsed into five categories to represent~20% of the sample in each category (Table 3). ...
... As a result, overall, the information was not comparable, nor did it provide a gradient to facilitate the use of the SII/RII. Therefore, occupation-based social class was the next best choice for the socioeconomic variable after income, as it is widely used to measure socioeconomic gradients in the UK and has been previously used as a proxy measure in the absence of income-related data [22][23][24]. Moreover, it is derived from the HRP's occupational unit group and employment status, wherein the HRP is defined as the person responsible for owning or renting the accommodation. ...
... However, our findings are hypothesis-generating, and the possible explanations to our findings require further investigation. Another limitation is the inconsistent use of socioeconomic measures between Canada and the US versus the UK, in that the latter uses an occupation-based social class measure of socioeconomic position, which despite being widely used to describe socioeconomic gradients in the UK [22,38], its direct comparability to household income is a limitation. However, occupation-based socioeconomic data has previously been used as a proxy measure in the absence of income-related data in research based on social stratification [23]. ...
The objective of this study was to quantify the magnitude of absolute and relative oral health inequality in countries with similar socio-political environments, but differing oral health care systems such as Canada, the United States (US), and the United Kingdom (UK), in the first decade of the new millennium. Clinical oral health data were obtained from the Canadian Health Measures Survey 2007–2009, the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2007–2008, and the Adult Dental Health Survey 2009, for Canada, the US and UK, respectively. The slope index of inequality (SII) and relative index of inequality (RII) were used to quantify absolute and relative inequality, respectively. There was significant oral health inequality in all three countries. Among dentate individuals, inequality in untreated decay was highest among Americans (SII:28.2; RII:4.7), followed by Canada (SII:21.0; RII:3.09) and lowest in the UK (SII:15.8; RII:1.75). Inequality for filled teeth was negligible in all three countries. For edentulism, inequality was highest in Canada (SII: 30.3; RII: 13.2), followed by the UK (SII: 10.2; RII: 11.5) and lowest in the US (SII: 10.3; and RII: 9.26). Lower oral health inequality in the UK speaks to the more equitable nature of its oral health care system, while a highly privatized dental care environment in Canada and the US may explain the higher inequality in these countries. However, despite an almost equal utilization of restorative dental care, there remained a higher concentration of unmet needs among the poor in all three countries.
... Ethnicity was self-reported by the adolescents using an anonymous survey tool and categorized as recommended in the report on New Caledonia [24] from the Institut National de la Santé Et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM; National Institute of Health and Medical Research). Three SES categories were generated according to the National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification [25]: managerial and professional occupations (high), intermediate occupations (medium), and routine and manual occupations (low). According to the latest census in New Caledonia [26] and a European standard for the degree of urbanization [27], Noumea and its suburbs were classified as urban and the other areas were classified as rural. ...
... However, when the active and inactive adolescents in New Caledonia were mixed, they reported drinking fewer SSBs than the Spaniards (4. 25 L·week −1 in boys and 3.81 L·week −1 in girls, Table 2). In contrast to Bibiloni et al.'s study, our findings showed a positive correlation between PA and quantity of SSB consumption (B = 0.29, p ≤ 0.01). ...
This cross-sectional study assessed sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) consumption and its associations with the sociodemographic and physical characteristics, behavior and knowledge of New Caledonian adolescents. The survey data of 447 adolescents from ages 11 to 16 years were collected in five secondary public schools of New Caledonia between July 2015 and April 2016. These data included measured height and weight, SSB consumption, sociodemographic characteristics, body weight perception, physical activity, and knowledge (sugar quantity/SSB unit; energy expenditure required to eliminate a unit) and opinions about the SSB‒weight gain relationship. Ninety percent of these adolescents declared regularly drinking SSBs. Quantities were associated with living environment (1.94 L·week−1 in urban environment vs. 4.49 L·week−1 in rural environment, p = 0.001), ethnic community (4.77 L·week−1 in Melanesians vs. 2.46 L·week−1 in Caucasians, p < 0.001) and knowledge about energy expenditure (6.22 L·week−1 in unknowledgeable adolescents vs. 4.26 L·week−1 in adolescents who underestimated, 3.73 L·week−1 in adolescents who overestimated, and 3.64 L·week−1 in adolescents who correctly responded on the energy expenditure required to eliminate an SSB unit, p = 0.033). To conclude, community-based health promotion strategies should (1) focus on the physical effort needed to negate SSB consumption rather than the nutritional energy from SSB units and (2) highlight how to achieve sustainable lifestyles and provide tools for greater understanding and positive action.
... Weberian sense, not only social class ( " market " and " work situation " ) but also social status ( " life chances " and " lifestyles " ). Understood in this way, the measurement serves to capture social positions, and several publications emphasize not only its reliability in predicting individuals " social positions but also its parsimony (Parkin, 1971;Rose & Pevalin, 2003). EGP as an occupation-based socio-economic measure is more stable for describing people " s social class than for describing their earning profiles (Goldthorpe & McKnight, 2006;Rose & Pevalin, 2003). ...
... Understood in this way, the measurement serves to capture social positions, and several publications emphasize not only its reliability in predicting individuals " social positions but also its parsimony (Parkin, 1971;Rose & Pevalin, 2003). EGP as an occupation-based socio-economic measure is more stable for describing people " s social class than for describing their earning profiles (Goldthorpe & McKnight, 2006;Rose & Pevalin, 2003). According to a literature review, the EGP is commonly used as a measure of social class in social science research involving the SOEP data (Groh-Samberg & Voges, 2014;Lancee & Pardos-Prado, 2013;Schacht, Kristen, & Tucci, 2014). ...
... Respondents' class was based on his or her current or last main job. The parental and respondent's class in the CGSS was converted from occupational titles and employment status via the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO 1988, Ganzeboom and Treiman, 1996) and that for Britain was based on the National Statistics Socio-economic Classification (NSSeC, Rose and Pevalin, 2003). The schema has been thoroughly validated (Rose and Pevalin, 2003) and is widely used in Britain and Europe in mobility research, and also in the USA (Beller, 2009) and China (Cheng and Dai, 1995; Wu and Treiman, 2007; Liu, 2008; Chen, 2013; Li, 2013). ...
... The parental and respondent's class in the CGSS was converted from occupational titles and employment status via the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO 1988, Ganzeboom and Treiman, 1996) and that for Britain was based on the National Statistics Socio-economic Classification (NSSeC, Rose and Pevalin, 2003). The schema has been thoroughly validated (Rose and Pevalin, 2003) and is widely used in Britain and Europe in mobility research, and also in the USA (Beller, 2009) and China (Cheng and Dai, 1995; Wu and Treiman, 2007; Liu, 2008; Chen, 2013; Li, 2013). We coded hukou origin in China according to the respondent's mother's hukou status when the respondent was at age 14. ...
This paper looks at social mobility in China and Britain. It explores whether the rapid economic development in China in the last thirty years has brought its mobility closer to that in Britain. It also examines the effects of China’s household registration system (hukou) on people’s mobility chances. Using national representative surveys in the two countries, we found a convergence in total mobility in the two countries but higher levels of inequality in China in terms of relative mobility. Chinese women faced the greatest disadvantages. The prime driver for social inequality in China was the hukou system. Rural people in China had very limited opportunities for education but even those who had similar levels of education were still very much hampered by the hukou penalty in trying to gain access to advantaged positions. Both societies are highly unequal but China has an additional barrier.
... Socioeconomic background: We used two standard measures for empirical work on the linkage between socioeconomic position and educational outcomes. The first is National Statistics Socioeconomic Class (NS-SEC, see Rose and Pevalin 2003). This is available for the household reference person, which is typically the main parent (wave 4, age 17, w4cnssecfam). ...
Progression to higher education in England varies markedly by region, with lower rates of participation outside of London. While some previous studies have explored challenges in accessing higher education in rural and coastal areas, there is a lack of research which considers both individual-level and geographic effects in relation to regional variations in HE progression. In this study, using multivariate regression analysis, we examine whether regional differences in transition to higher education can be explained by the rural/coastal nature of the geographic area in which young people grow up, by area-level deprivation, or by the characteristics of young people living within these regions. The analysis uses the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England, a representative cohort study. These data have been linked to information on the proximity to the coast. Consistent with other work, we find that individual differences and area-level deprivation predict HE aspirations and progression. The newly introduced coastal/rural indicator also predicts HE aspirations and progression, but this is mitigated by the inclusion of individual differences and area-level deprivation. However, we find that unexplained regional differences persist. In particular, the South West of England emerges as a regional cold spot for HE. Consequently, policy makers should consider the role that regional dynamics may have in influencing the choices and constraints faced by young people. The approach may also be applicable to understanding inequalities in progression to HE in other countries.
... Socioeconomic status (SES) was indexed on the basis of the occupation of the household reference person (defined as the head of the household with the highest income) using the socioeconomic classification of national statistics [34]. In this study, three categories were selected: management and professional occupations (upper SES), intermediate occupations (intermediate SES), and common and manual occupations (lower SES). ...
Objective:
For several years, the Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICTs) have been undergoing digital developments that have had an impact on the time adolescents spend in front of screens. The association between screen time and the overconsumption of unhealthy foods has been observed but little studied in New Caledonia. The twofold aim of this research was to analyze adolescent screen time based on the number of screens at home, gender, place of living, ethnic community and family socio-professional category and determine the link with the consumption of unhealthy food and drinks.
Methods:
Self-report questionnaires on time spent in front of tablets, computers and mobile phones, as well as the consumption of unhealthy food and drinks, were administered between July 2018 and April 2019 to 867 adolescents from 11 to 15 years old during school hours in eight schools across the three provinces of New Caledonia.
Results:
Adolescents in rural areas had fewer screens than their urban counterparts, and the number of screens determined the amount of screen time, which was significantly higher among the adolescents living in urban areas (3.05 h/day weekdays vs rural 2.33 h/day). Screen time was not related to gender, socio-professional category or ethnic community, but correlations were found between screen time and consumption of unhealthy food and drinks. Those who consumed less than 1 u/day of unhealthy drinks watched screens for 3.30 h/day, whereas those who consumed more than 1 u/day watched screens for 4.13 h/day. Also, those who consumed less than 1 u/day of unhealthy food watched screens for 2.82 h/day and those consuming more than 1 u/day did so for 3.62 h/day. Melanesians and Polynesians consumed greater quantities of unhealthy food and drinks than Europeans. As the consumption of unhealthy products is linked to screen time in the context of digital development, there is an urgent need to address the excessive consumption of unhealthy foods in Oceanian populations, particularly among young people.
... We recruited 40 patients diagnosed with recent-onset psychosis (<5 years since diagnosis, with antipsychotic drugs exposure either absent or minimal (<12 weeks)) and 40 patients with established psychosis (10 or more years since diagnosis; a minimum of 8 weeks of stable antipsychotic drug treatment). We further recruited 42 controls, matched for age and sex, as well as parental occupation as a measure of socio-economic background (NS-SEC; Krieger et al., 2003). In each group, half of the patients were recruited and scanned in Nottingham, and the other half in Cardiff. ...
Magnetoencephalography (MEG) measures magnetic fields generated by synchronised neural current flow and provides direct inference on brain electrophysiology and connectivity, with high spatial and temporal resolution. The movement-related beta decrease (MRBD) and the post-movement beta rebound (PMBR) are well-characterised effects in magnetoencephalography (MEG), with the latter having been shown to relate to long-range network integrity. Our previous work has shown that the PMBR is diminished (relative to controls) in a group of schizophrenia patients. However, little is known about how this effect might differ in patients at different stages of illness and degrees of clinical severity. Here, we extend our previous findings showing that the MEG derived PMBR abnormality in schizophrenia exists in 29 recent-onset and 35 established cases, compared to 42 control cases. In established cases, PMBR is negatively correlated with severity of disorganization symptoms. Further, using a hidden Markov model analysis, we show that transient pan-spectral oscillatory ”bursts”, which underlie the PMBR, differ between healthy controls and patients. Results corroborate that PMBR is associated with disorganization of mental activity in schizophrenia.
... The adolescents used an anonymous survey tool to report ethnicity, and the ethnic groups were categorised following the recommendations from the report on New Caledonia [26] by the Institut National de la Santé Et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM; National Institute of Health and Medical Research). Three SES categories were determined based on the National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification [27]: managerial and professional occupations (high), intermediate occupations (medium), and routine and manual occupations (low). We referred to the latest census in New Caledonia [13] and a European standard to determine the degrees of urbanisation [28]: Noumea and its suburbs were classified as urban and the other areas were classified as rural. ...
Background:
Food consumption, sleep duration and overweight were assessed in rural and urban Melanesian adolescents.
Methods:
A cross-sectional survey of 312 rural and 104 urban adolescents (11-16 years old) was conducted. Food intakes were assessed by a 26-item food frequency questionnaire and then categorised into the number of serves from each of the three recommended Pacific food groups (energy foods, protective foods, bodybuilding foods), with two additional categories for foods and drinks to be avoided i.e., processed foods and sugary drinks. Number of food serves were compared with the guidelines of 50% serves from energy foods, 35% serves from protective foods and 15% serves from bodybuilding foods. Sleep duration as hours per day was self-reported and body mass index (BMI) was calculated from measured weight and height.
Results:
Approximately 17.9% of rural and 26.9% of urban adolescents met the guidelines for energy foods; 61.5% rural and 69.2% urban met the serves for protective foods and 88.5% and 94.2% met the serves for bodybuilding foods. Less than 6.4% rural and 1.9% urban adolescents avoided processed foods but 61.5% rural and 56.7% urban avoided sugary beverages. Sleep duration for school days was below the international recommendations and did not significantly differ between rural and urban groups: respectively, 8.16 ± 1.10 and 8.31 ± 1.29 h. Overweight/obesity percentage was 38.1% for rural and 31.7% for urban adolescents.
Conclusions:
Although traditional foods, including protective food, are still part of the adolescents' diet, low consumption of the energy food group and high consumption of processed food occurs regardless of location. As poor eating habits and insufficient sleep may contribute to overweight/obesity, educational nutrition programs should target these lifestyle variables.
... Ethnicity was self-reported by the adolescents and categorized as recommended in the INSERM report on New Caledonia (, 2008), but we did not allow participants to choose more than one ethnic group. SES was indexed on the basis of the occupation of the household reference person (defined as the householder with the highest income) using the National Statistics Socioeconomic Classification (Krieger, 2003). In this study, three categories were retained: managerial and professional occupations (higher SES), intermediate occupations (intermediate SES), and routine and manual occupations (lower SES). ...
Objectives:
The first aim was to examine New Caledonian adolescents' views of what constitutes an overweight or underweight person. The second aim was to assess whether an environment with a high prevalence of overweight is associated with different norms of overweight or underweight in this population.
Methods:
The Stunkard Figure Rating Scale was used for a sample of 699 pluriethnic adolescents in New Caledonia. Body mass index (BMI) was assessed for each participant and weight status was determined. The factors associated with higher figure ratings were determined by linear regression modeling.
Results:
Multilinear regression analysis indicated that gender (being male) and BMI were associated with higher rating scores to designate overweight. Moreover, higher BMI z-scores were associated with higher underweight figure ratings. Ethnicity, area of residence, age, and socioeconomic status were not associated with higher ratings of body image.
Conclusions:
These findings show that an environment with a high prevalence of overweight does not necessarily shift adolescent "norms," contrary to visual normalization theory. These results should be taken into account in educational overweight prevention programs.
... This has nine categories including a student group. 19 The key outcome measures are the Rivermead Post-Concussion Questionnaire (RPQ) and the Rivermead Head Injury Follow-up Questionnaire (RHFUQ). The RPQ is a short and reliable tool for measuring symptoms after mTBI. ...
Introduction: Several patients who suffer Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (mTBI) develop Persistent Post-Concussion Symptoms (PPCS) and long-term disability. Current prognostic models for mTBI have a large unexplained variance, which limits their use in a clinical setting.
Aim: This study aimed to identify background demographics and mTBI details that are associated with PPCS and long-term disability.
Methods: Patients from the SHEFfield Brain Injury after Trauma (SHEFBIT) cohort with mTBI in the Emergency Department (ED) were analysed as part of the study. PPCS and long-term disability were measured using the Rivermead Post-Concussion Questionnaire and the Rivermead Post-Injury Follow-up Questionnaire respectively, during follow up brain injury clinics.
Results: A representative mTBI sample of 647 patients was recruited with a follow-up rate of 89%. Non-attenders were older (p < 0.001), a greater proportion were retired (p < 0.001) and had a greater burden of comorbidity (p = 0.009). Multivariate analysis identified that female gender, previous psychiatric history, GCS <15, aetiology of assault and alcohol intoxication, were associated with worse recovery.
Conclusion: These findings will support and add to current understanding of MBTI recovery in pursuit of developing a validated prognostic model. This will allow for more accurate prognostication and eventual improved treatment for sufferers of this complex disorder.
... Typically developing control participants were screened for symptoms of neurodevelopmental disorders with the DAWBA and symptom rating scales. The groups were matched on age (AE8 months), gender, handedness, and socio-economic status (SES) (AE1 classification on the Office of National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification system; Rose & Pevalin, 2003). The participant demographics and symptom profiles are shown in Table 1. ...
Impaired habit-learning has been proposed to underlie the tic symptoms of Tourette syndrome (TS). However, accounts differ in terms of how habit-learning is altered in TS, with some authors proposing habit-formation is impaired due to a deficient “chunking” mechanism, and others proposing habit-learning is over-active and tics reflect hyper-learned behaviours. Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) frequently co-occurs with TS and is known to affect cognitive function in young people with co-occurring TS and ADHD (TS+ADHD). It is unclear, however, how co-occurring ADHD symptoms affect habit-learning in TS. In this study, we investigated whether young people with TS would show deficient or hyper-active habit-learning, and assessed the effects of co-occurring ADHD symptoms on habit-learning in TS. Participants aged 9-17 years with TS (n = 18), TS+ADHD (n = 17), ADHD (n = 13) and typical development (n = 20) completed a motor sequence-learning task to assess habit-learning. We used a 2 (TS-yes, TS-no) x 2 (ADHD-yes, ADHD-no) factorial analysis to test the effects of TS, ADHD, and their interaction on accuracy and reaction time indices of sequence-learning. TS was associated with intact sequence-learning, but a tendency for difficulty transitioning from sequenced to non-sequenced performance was suggestive of hyper-learning. ADHD was associated with significantly poorer accuracy during acquisition of the sequence, indicative of impaired habit-learning. There were no interactions between the TS and ADHD factors, indicating young people with TS+ADHD showed both TS- and ADHD-related atypicalities in habit-learning.
... Healthy controls were recruited from the local community via advertisements, and 40 subjects free of any psychiatric or neurological disorder group-matched for age and parental socioeconomic status [measured using National Statistics -Socio Economic Classification (Rose & Pevalin, 2003)] were included. Controls had similar exclusion criteria to patients; in addition, subjects with personal or family history of psychotic illness were excluded. ...
Background
In patients with schizophrenia, distributed abnormalities are observed in grey matter volume. A recent hypothesis posits that these distributed changes are indicative of a plastic reorganisation process occurring in response to a functional defect in neuronal information transmission. We investigated the structural covariance across various brain regions in early-stage schizophrenia to determine if indeed the observed patterns of volumetric loss conform to a coordinated pattern of structural reorganisation.
Methods
Structural magnetic resonance imaging scans were obtained from 40 healthy adults and 41 age, gender and parental socioeconomic status matched patients with schizophrenia. Volumes of grey matter tissue were estimated at the regional level across 90 atlas-based parcellations. Group-level structural covariance was studied using a graph theoretical framework.
Results
Patients had distributed reduction in grey matter volume, with high degree of localised covariance (clustering) compared with controls. Patients with schizophrenia had reduced centrality of anterior cingulate and insula but increased centrality of the fusiform cortex, compared with controls. Simulating targeted removal of highly central nodes resulted in significant loss of the overall covariance patterns in patients compared with controls.
Conclusion
Regional volumetric deficits in schizophrenia are not a result of random, mutually independent processes. Our observations support the occurrence of a spatially interconnected reorganisation with the systematic de-escalation of conventional ‘hub’ regions. This raises the question of whether the morphological architecture in schizophrenia is primed for compensatory functions, albeit with a high risk of inefficiency.
... The outlines of both are presented in Table 1. NS-SEC is used in the U.K. census and is based on extensive academic work (see Erikson & Goldthorpe, 1992;Rose & Pevalin, 2003). NS-SEC is used in the DCMS Taking Part Survey, and NRS is used in the OfCom survey. ...
Background:This article explores the relationship between social class and social media use and draws on the work of Pierre Bourdieu in examining class in terms of social, economic, and cultural capital. The article starts from a prior finding that those who predominantly only use social media formed a higher proportion of Internet users from lower socioeconomic groups. Data: The article draws on data from two nationally representative U.K. surveys, the OfCom (Office of Communications) Media Literacy Survey (n ≈ 1,800 per annum) and the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport’s Taking Part Survey (n ≈ 10,000 per annum). Methods: Following Yates, Kirby, and Lockley, five types of Internet behavior and eight types of Internet user are identified utilizing principal components analysis and k-means clustering. These Internet user types are then examined against measures of social, economic, and cultural capital. Data on forms of cultural consumption and digital media use are examined using multiple correspondence analysis. Findings: The article concludes that forms of digital media use are in correspondence with other social, cultural, and economic aspects of social class status and contemporary social systems of distinction.
... Participants were asked to provide information about their age (in years), sex, ethnicity (white/non-white), marital status (married or living with partner; yes/no), social grade assessed with the reduced National Statistics Socio-economic Classification measure [34] and categorised into ABC1/C2DE, education (post-16 [post high school] qualification; yes/no) and England region (North/Central/South). ...
Background:
Literature on population awareness about actual causes of cancer is growing but comparatively little is known about the prevalence of people's belief concerning mythical causes of cancer. This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of these beliefs and their association with socio-demographic characteristics and health behaviours.
Methods:
A survey containing validated measures of beliefs about actual and mythical cancer causes and health behaviours (smoking, alcohol consumption, physical activity, fruit and vegetable consumption, overweight) was administered to a representative English population sample (N = 1330).
Results:
Awareness of actual causes of cancer (52% accurately identified; 95% confidence interval [CI] 51-54) was greater than awareness of mythical cancer causes (36% accurately identified; 95% CI 34-37; P < 0.01). The most commonly endorsed mythical cancer causes were exposure to stress (43%; 95% CI 40-45), food additives (42%; 95% CI 39-44) and electromagnetic frequencies (35%; 95% CI 33-38). In adjusted analysis, greater awareness of actual and mythical cancer causes was independently associated with younger age, higher social grade, being white and having post-16 qualifications. Awareness of actual but not mythical cancer causes was associated with not smoking and eating sufficient fruit and vegetables.
Conclusions:
Awareness of actual and mythical cancer causes is poor in the general population. Only knowledge of established risk factors is associated with adherence to behavioural recommendations for reducing cancer risk.
... We employ an occupation-based socio-economic mea- sure because it provides a robust and parsimonious indicator of parental social positions (see Connelly, Gayle and Lambert 2016b). Occupation-based socio- economic measures do not simply act as a proxy where income data are unavailable, they are sociological measures designed to better understand fun- damental forms of social relations and inequalities to which income is merely epiphenomenal (Rose and Pevalin 2003). In this analysis we employ the United Kingdom National Statistics Socio-economic Classification (NS-SEC) (see Rose and Pevalin 2005) which is widely used in sociological analyses and in offi- cial statistics. ...
The ‘Flynn effect’ describes the substantial and long-standing increase in average cognitive ability test scores, which has been observed in numerous psychological studies. Flynn makes an appeal for researchers to move beyond psychology's standard disciplinary boundaries and to consider sociological contexts, in order to develop a more comprehensive understanding of cognitive inequalities. In this article we respond to this appeal and investigate social class inequalities in general cognitive ability test scores over time. We analyse data from the National Child Development Study (1958) and the British Cohort Study (1970). These two British birth cohorts are suitable nationally representative large-scale data resources for studying inequalities in general cognitive ability. We observe a large parental social class effect, net of parental education and gender in both cohorts. The overall finding is that large social class divisions in cognitive ability can be observed when children are still at primary school, and similar patterns are observed in each cohort. Notably, pupils with fathers at the lower end of the class structure are at a distinct disadvantage. This is a disturbing finding and it is especially important because cognitive ability is known to influence individuals later in the lifecourse.
... Ethnicity was self-reported by the adolescents using an anonymous survey and categorized as recommended in the INSERM report on New Caledonia (INSERM 2008). SES was indexed on the basis of the occupation of the household reference person (defined as the householder with the highest income) using the National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification (Krieger 2003). In this study, three categories were retained: managerial and professional occupations (higher SES), intermediate occupations (intermediate SES), and routine and manual occupations (lower SES). ...
Objective(s):
The prevalence of adolescent obesity is high among the various ethnic groups native to the Pacific region (European, Melanesian and Polynesian). An important factor of weight gain or loss is body size satisfaction; however, little is known about adolescent body self-perception in the Pacific region.
Design:
Body dissatisfaction was evaluated using the Stunkard Figure Rating Scale in a sample of 699 adolescents from rural and urban areas of New Caledonia. The socio-demographic factors associated with higher body dissatisfaction were determined by multiple linear regression modeling.
Results:
Our results showed a high rate of body dissatisfaction (over 70%) in the adolescents. Body dissatisfaction was strongly related to the body mass index z-score. Melanesians boys had higher body dissatisfaction scores when they felt 'too thin' while Melanesian girls showed lower body dissatisfaction when they felt 'too fat.'.
Conclusion:
These results showed that social pressure for thinness or musculature may be different among adolescents living in New Caledonia. These results should be taken into account in education overweight prevention programs.
... For the first time, respondents in the July-September 2014 quarter were asked about the occupation of their main income-earner parent when they were 14. Responses are reported as SOC 2010 codes, which we grouped into the seven-class National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification, 5 which is itself based on the Erikson-Goldthorpe-Portacero model (Rose and Pevalin 2003). To simplify comparisons, we grouped these into NS-SEC 1 origin (higher man- ager and professional parent), NS-SEC 2 origin (lower manager and professio- nal), NS-SEC 3-5 origin (intermediate occupations) and NS-SEC 6-7 origin (routine and semi-routine occupations). ...
We investigate the relationship between social origin, postgraduate degree attainment, and occupational outcomes across five British age-group cohorts. We use recently-available UK Labour Force Survey data to conduct a series of logistic regressions of postgraduate (masters or doctorate) degree attainment among those with first degrees, with controls for measures of degree classification, degree subject, age, gender, ethnicity and national origin. We find a marked strengthening of the effect of class origin on degree- and occupational attainment across age cohorts. While for older generations there is little or no difference by class origin in the rates at which first-degree graduates attain postgraduate degrees, those with working-class-origins in the youngest age-group are only about 28 per cent as likely to obtain a postgraduate degree when compared with their peers from privileged origins. Moreover, social origin matters more for occupational destination, even among those with postgraduate degrees, for those in younger age groups. These findings demonstrate the newly important, and increasing, role of postgraduate degrees in reproducing socio-economic inequality in the wake of the substantial expansion of undergraduate and postgraduate education. Our findings lend some support to the Maximally Maintained Inequality thesis, suggesting that gains in equality of access to first-degrees are indeed at risk from postgraduate expansion.
... Ethnicity was self-reported by the adolescent using an anonymous questionnaire and categorized as recommended in the INSERM report on New Caledonia (Hamelin et al. 2008). SES was indexed on the basis of the occupation of the household reference person (defined as the householder with the highest income) using the National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification (Krieger 2003 Communities 2003) to assess the degree of urbanization. An urban area is defined as a densely populated area comprising at least 50,000 inhabitants in a continuous zone with more than 500 inhabitants per km 2 . ...
Objectives:
New Caledonia is a multi-ethnic French territory in the Pacific, characterized by communities with widely varying nutritional habits. Little is currently known about adolescent food behaviors and habits and their association with overweight. This study therefore determined the sociodemographic factors and food behaviors associated with overweight and underweight in this population, as well as the factors associated with skipping breakfast.
Methods:
A cross-sectional survey was conducted among New Caledonian adolescents using a self-administered questionnaire; anthropometric measurements were also taken. Weight status was determined using international cutoffs, and the factors associated with overweight and underweight were identified with multiple logistic regression analysis. The factors associated with breakfast skipping were also determined.
Results:
Skipping breakfast, being Melanesian, living in a rural area and having low economic status were positively associated with overweight in these adolescents. Skipping breakfast was relatively infrequent, reported by 18% and 13% of the males and females, respectively. Logistic regression models found that the main factors associated with breakfast consumption habits were gender, weight status and ethnicity.
Conclusions:
Several factors are associated with overweight status in New Caledonian adolescents. Breakfast education should be improved for adolescents living in rural areas and from low socioeconomic status.
... This understanding of class is in fact that which informs the main social classification in use in British official statistics since 2001: the National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification (NS-SEC). And it is on this classification that our research findings are largely based (for further details of the construction and application of NS-SEC, see Rose & O'Reilly 1997; Rose & Pevalin 2003; Rose et al. 2005; Office for National Statistics 2005; and for underlying theory, Goldthorpe 2007, vol. 2: ch. ...
... Typically developing control participants were screened for symptoms of neurodevelopmental disorders with the DAWBA and symptom rating scales. The groups were matched on age (+/− 8 months), gender, handedness, and socioeconomic status (SES) (+/− 1 classification on the Office of National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification system, Rose and Pevalin, 2003). The participant demographics and symptom profiles are shown in Table 1. ...
Altered reinforcement learning is implicated in the causes of Tourette syndrome (TS) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). TS and ADHD frequently co-occur but how this affects reinforcement learning has not been investigated. We examined the ability of young people with TS (n = 18), TS + ADHD (N = 17), ADHD (n = 13) and typically developing controls (n = 20) to learn and reverse stimulus-response (S-R) associations based on positive and negative reinforcement feedback. We used a 2 (TS-yes, TS-no) × 2 (ADHD-yes, ADHD-no) factorial design to assess the effects of TS, ADHD, and their interaction on behavioural (accuracy, RT) and event-related potential (stimulus-locked P3, feedback-locked P2, feedback-related negativity, FRN) indices of learning and reversing the S-R associations. TS was associated with intact learning and reversal performance and largely typical ERP amplitudes. ADHD was associated with lower accuracy during S-R learning and impaired reversal learning (significantly reduced accuracy and a trend for smaller P3 amplitude). The results indicate that co-occurring ADHD symptoms impair reversal learning in TS + ADHD. The implications of these findings for behavioural tic therapies are discussed.
... For inclusion in the study, patients had to be between 18 and 50 years old, and have an IQ score of above 70 (measured by the Quick Test [Ammons and Ammons, 1962]). Healthy volunteers were recruited from the community via advertisements to form a control sample , matched groupwise to the patient group for age, sex, and parental socioeconomic status (SES), assessed according to the National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification [Rose and Pevalin, 2003]. A clinical interview by a research psychiatrist was performed to ensure that the controls were free from current Axis I psychiatric disorders; history of psychotic or neurological disorder; or a history of psychotic illness in a first degree relative. ...
Aberrant salience attribution and cerebral dysconnectivity both have strong evidential support as core dysfunctions in schizophrenia. Aberrant salience arising from an excess of dopamine activity has been implicated in delusions and hallucinations, exaggerating the significance of everyday occurrences and thus leading to perceptual distortions and delusional causal inferences. Meanwhile, abnormalities in key nodes of a salience brain network have been implicated in other characteristic symptoms, including the disorganization and impoverishment of mental activity. A substantial body of literature reports disruption to brain network connectivity in schizophrenia. Electrical oscillations likely play a key role in the coordination of brain activity at spatially remote sites, and evidence implicates beta band oscillations in long-range integrative processes. We used magnetoencephalography and a task designed to disambiguate responses to relevant from irrelevant stimuli to investigate beta oscillations in nodes of a network implicated in salience detection and previously shown to be structurally and functionally abnormal in schizophrenia. Healthy participants, as expected, produced an enhanced beta synchronization to behaviorally relevant, as compared to irrelevant, stimuli, while patients with schizophrenia showed the reverse pattern: a greater beta synchronization in response to irrelevant than to relevant stimuli. These findings not only support both the aberrant salience and disconnectivity hypotheses, but indicate a common mechanism that allows us to integrate them into a single framework for understanding schizophrenia in terms of disrupted recruitment of contextually appropriate brain networks. Hum Brain Mapp, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
... In contrast, age was unrelated to job status insecurity. Our measure of occupational class was the ONS Socio-Economic Classification (NS-SEC), which has been extensively validated with respect to its capacity to differentiate employment relationships (Rose and Pevalin, 2003). Without controls, there is some evidence of class effects on job tenure insecurity, although the pattern is at odds with our initial expectations: lower professionals and managers and semi-skilled operatives had lower job tenure insecurity than higher managers and professionals. ...
Drawing on nationally representative data for British employees, the article argues for a more comprehensive concept of job insecurity, including not only job tenure insecurity but also job status insecurity, relating to anxiety about changes to valued features of the job. It shows that job status insecurity is highly prevalent in the workforce and is associated with different individual, employment and labour market characteristics than those that affect insecurity about job loss. It is also related to different organizational contexts. However, the article also shows that the existence of effective mechanisms of employee participation can reduce both types of job insecurity.
... Cognitive functions, like other health functions, are also shaped by social determinants of health [41, 42]. These determinants include occupational class (three categories: managerial, intermediate and routine manual class as reference; National Statistics Socio-Economic Classi- fication [43]), wealth tertiles (top, middle and bottom as reference), marital status (married/ cohabiting, divorced or separated and single as reference)[13], and education (at least some college, high school and less than high school as reference). Education level in particular has been repeatedly shown to affect cognitive functioning in older people, either directly through the provision of cognitive reserve or indirectly through the occupational route [13, 44]. ...
Background:
Dementias in high income countries are set to be the third major burden of disease even as older people are increasingly required to think for themselves how to provide for their lives in retirement. Meanwhile the period of older age continues to extend with increase in life expectancy. This challenge demands an understanding of how cognition changes over an extended period in later life. But studying cognitive ageing in the population faces a difficulty from the fact that older respondents are liable to leave (attrite) before study completion. This study tested three hypotheses: trajectories of cognitive ageing in Britain show an improvement beyond the age of 50; and they are lifted by secular improvement in cognition across cohorts; lastly they are susceptible to distortion due to attrition.
Methods and findings:
Using the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, this paper studied trajectories of episodic memory of Britons aged 50-89 from 2002 to 2013 (N = 5931). Using joint models the analysis found that levels of episodic memory follow a curvilinear shape, not a steady decline, in later life. The findings also revealed secular improvement in cognitive ageing such that as a cohort is being replaced episodic memory levels in the population improve. The analysis lastly demonstrated that failure to simultaneously model attrition can produce distorted pictures of cognitive ageing.
Conclusion:
Old age in this century is not necessarily a period dominated by cognitive decline. In identifying behavioural factors associated with better cognitive ageing, such as social connections of traditional and online kinds, the paper raises possibilities of mustering an adequate response to the cognition challenge.
... In estimating each association between the main exposure and the outcome, an extensive set of covariates are controlled, a set larger than most in the literature [1,11,12]. Demographic characteristics include age, age square, sex (Female); socioeconomic status includes wealth tertiles (the poorest as reference), social class (routine manual class and the rest as reference; National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification [20], education (age at leaving school), and marital status (comprising indicators for married/cohabiting, separated, widowed, and single as reference). Social connections are constructed from responses about meeting friends, relatives and children (or speaking, or writing to them). ...
Background:
The ageing population poses a tremendous challenge in understanding the sources of inequalities in health. Though they appear to be far removed, childhood conditions are known to be inextricably linked with adult health, and in turn on health in later life. The long arm of childhood conditions hypothesis is often tested using recollection of childhood circumstances, but such subjective recall can yield potentially inaccurate or possibly biased inferences. We tested the long arm hypothesis on three outcomes in later life, arrayed from objective to subjective health, namely: gait speed, episodic memory and mental health.
Methods and findings:
We used the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing 2006 enriched with retrospective life history (N = 5,913). To deal with recall problems two solutions, covariate measurement and endogenous treatment models, were applied. Retrospective childhood material lack includes growing up without running hot or cold water, fixed bath, indoor lavatory and central heating. Adjustment is made for an extensive set of confounders including sex, age, adult health, wealth, education, occupation, social support, social connections, chronic conditions, smoking, drinking, and physical exercise. It is found that material poverty when growing up shows no association with health when growing old, assuming accurate recall. Once recall problems are controlled, we found that childhood material poverty changes inversely with later life health.
Conclusion:
A poorer childhood goes with slower gait, poorer memory and more depression in later life. This result provides a further impetus to eliminate child poverty.
... This sample has been previously reported in our earlier study (Palaniyappan et al., 2013). 34 patients satisfying DSM-IV criteria for schizophrenia (n = 28) or schizoaffective disorder (n = 6) and 32 age, gender and parental socio-economic status (Rose and Pevalin, 2003) matched healthy controls were included. Patients were recruited from the community-based mental health teams (including Early Intervention in Psychosis teams) in Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire, UK. ...
Spatial variation in connectivity is an integral aspect of the brain's architecture. In the absence of this variability, the brain may act as a single homogenous entity without regional specialization. In this study, we investigate the variability in functional links categorized on the basis of the presence of direct structural paths (primary) or indirect paths mediated by one (secondary) or more (tertiary) brain regions ascertained by diffusion tensor imaging. We quantified the variability in functional connectivity using an unbiased estimate of unpredictability (functional connectivity entropy) in a neuropsychiatric disorder where structure-function relationship is considered to be abnormal; 34 patients with schizophrenia and 32 healthy controls underwent DTI and resting state functional MRI scans. Less than one-third (27.4% in patients, 27.85% in controls) of functional links between brain regions were regarded as direct primary links on the basis of DTI tractography, while the rest were secondary or tertiary. The most significant changes in the distribution of functional connectivity in schizophrenia occur in indirect tertiary paths with no direct axonal linkage in both early (P = 0.0002, d = 1.46) and late (P = 1 × 10(-17) , d = 4.66) stages of schizophrenia, and are not altered by the severity of symptoms, suggesting that this is an invariant feature of this illness. Unlike those with early stage illness, patients with chronic illness show some additional reduction in the distribution of connectivity among functional links that have direct structural paths (P = 0.08, d = 0.44). Our findings address a critical gap in the literature linking structure and function in schizophrenia, and demonstrate for the first time that the abnormal state of functional connectivity preferentially affects structurally unconstrained links in schizophrenia. It also raises the question of a continuum of dysconnectivity ranging from less direct (structurally unconstrained) to more direct (structurally constrained) brain pathways underlying the progressive clinical staging and persistence of schizophrenia. Hum Brain Mapp, 2015. © 2015 The Authors. Human Brain Mapping Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
© 2015 The Authors. Human Brain Mapping Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
... The HSE classifies social class using either the Registrar General's occupational classification (Szreter, 1984) or the National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification (NS-SEC) (Rose and Pevalin, 2003) or both. For the primary analyses, encompassing all study years until 2009, the social class of the head of household was classified according to the Registrar General's occupational classification, which contains the following categories: 'I: Professional'; 'II: Managerial/technical'; 'IIINM: Skilled non-manual'; 'IIIM: Skilled manual'; 'IV: Semi-skilled manual'; 'V: Unskilled manual'; or 'Other' (including armed forces). ...
Tackling social inequalities in health has been a priority for recent UK governments. We used repeated national cross-sectional data for 155,311 participants (aged ≥16 years) in the Health Survey of England to examine trends in socio-economic inequalities in self-reported health over a recent period of sustained policy focus by successive UK governments aimed at tackling social inequalities in health. Socio-economic related inequalities in self-reported health were estimated using the Registrar General's occupational classification (1996-2009), and for sensitivity analyses, the National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification (NS-SEC; 2001-2011). Multi-level regression was used to evaluate time trends in General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) scores and bad or very bad self-assessed health (SAH), as well as EQ-5D utility scores. The study found that the probability of reporting GHQ-12 scores ≥4 and ≥ 1 was higher in those from lower social classes, and decreased for all social classes between 1997 and 2009. For SAH, the probability of reporting bad or very bad health remained relatively constant for social class I (professional) [0.028 (95%CI: 0.026, 0.029) in 1996 compared to 0.028 (95%CI: 0.024, 0.032) in 2009], but increased in lower social classes, with the greatest increase observed amongst those in social class V (unskilled manual) [0.089 (95%CI: 0.085, 0.093) in 1996 compared to 0.155 (95%CI: 0.141, 0.168) in 2009]. EQ-5D utility scores were lower for those in lower social classes, but remained comparable across survey years. In sensitivity analyses using the NS-SEC, health outcomes improved from 2001 to 2011, with no evidence of widening socio-economic inequalities. Our findings suggest that socio-economic inequalities have persisted, with evidence of widening for some adverse self-reported health outcomes.
Crown Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
... We did, however, include women's employment as a categorical variable: currently employed, previously employed and never employed. The baby's father's occupation was coded based on the National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification (NS-SEC) classification [16]. Categories were then collapsed into the following: non-manual employment (including modern professional occupations, clerical and intermediate occupations, senior managers or administrators, middle or junior managers, traditional professional occupations and technical and craft occupations), manual employment (including semi-routine manual and service occupations and routine manual and service occupations), selfemployed , student, unemployed (including long term sick) and don't know. ...
Background
Almost all studies in health research control or investigate socioeconomic position (SEP) as exposure or confounder. Different measures of SEP capture different aspects of the underlying construct, so efficient methodologies to combine them are needed. SEP and ethnicity are strongly associated, however not all measures of SEP may be appropriate for all ethnic groups.
Methods
We used latent class analysis (LCA) to define subgroups of women with similar SEP profiles using 19 measures of SEP. Data from 11,326 women were used, from eight different ethnic groups but with the majority from White British (40%) or Pakistani (45%) backgrounds, who were recruited during pregnancy to the Born in Bradford birth cohort study.
Results
Five distinct SEP subclasses were identified in the LCA: (i) "Least socioeconomically deprived and most educated" (20%); (ii) "Employed and not materially deprived" (19%); (iii) "Employed and no access to money" (16%); (iv) "Benefits and not materially deprived" (29%) and (v) "Most economically deprived" (16%). Based on the magnitude of the point estimates, the strongest associations were that compared to White British women, Pakistani and Bangladeshi women were more likely to belong to groups: (iv) "benefits and not materially deprived" (relative risk ratio (95% CI): 5.24 (4.44, 6.19) and 3.44 (2.37, 5.00), respectively) or (v) most deprived group (2.36 (1.96, 2.84) and 3.35 (2.21, 5.06) respectively) compared to the least deprived class. White Other women were more than twice as likely to be in the (iv) "benefits and not materially deprived group" compared to White British women and all ethnic groups, other than the Mixed group, were less likely to be in the (iii) "employed and not materially deprived" group than White British women.
Conclusions
LCA allows different aspects of an individual’s SEP to be considered in one multidimensional indicator, which can then be integrated in epidemiological analyses. Ethnicity is strongly associated with these identified subgroups. Findings from this study suggest a careful use of SEP measures in health research, especially when looking at different ethnic groups. Further replication of these findings is needed in other populations.
... The median defined daily dose (DDD; WHO-CCDSM, 2003) was calculated separately for antipsychotics, mood stabilizers including lithium and antidepressants and no patient had a change in any of these medications 6 weeks prior to participating in this study. Healthy controls were recruited from the local community via advertisements and participants were recruited and group-matched to the patient group for age and parental socioeconomic status (Rose & Pevalin, 2003). Controls satisfied the same inclusion and exclusion criteria as the patients, as specified above, and in addition did not have a personal or family history of psychotic disorders. ...
BACKGROUND: There is an appreciable overlap in the clinical presentation, epidemiology and treatment response of the two major psychotic disorders - Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder. Nevertheless, the shared neurobiological correlates of these two disorders are still elusive. Using Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI), we sought to identify brain regions which share altered white matter connectivity across a clinical spectrum of psychotic disorders.
METHODS: A sample of 41 healthy controls, 62 patients in a clinically stable state of an established psychotic disorder (40 with schizophrenia, 22 with bipolar disorder) were studied using Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI). Tract-Based Spatial Statistics was used in order to study group differences between patients with psychosis and healthy controls using Fractional Anisotropy (FA). Probabilistic Tractography was used in order to visualise the tracts clusters that showed significant differences between these two groups.
RESULTS: The TBSS analysis revealed 5 clusters (callosal, posterior thalamic/optic, paralimbic and fronto-occipital) with reduced FA in psychosis. This reduction in FA was associated with an increase in radial diffusivity and a decrease in mode of anisotropy. Factor analysis revealed a single white matter integrity factor that predicted social and occupational functioning scores in patients irrespective of the diagnostic categorisation. CONCLUSION: Our results show that a shared white matter dysconnectivity links the two major psychotic disorders. These microstructural abnormalities predict functional outcome better than symptom-based diagnostic boundaries during a clinically stable phase of illness, highlighting the importance of seeking shared neurobiological factors that underlie the clinical spectrum of psychosis.
... Socio-economic status was determined using the National Statistics Socio-economic Classification method, which is based on the mother's current or most recent occupation (Rose & Pevalin, 2003). ...
Research on the effects of breastfeeding on child cognitive development has produced conflicting results, and many studies do not account for infant stimulation in the home. The aim of this study is to determine whether breastfeeding predicts enhanced cognitive development in one-year-old infants after controlling for the main socio-economic and environmental factors, including stimulation in the home. This cross-sectional observational study involved 137 infants and their mothers. Information on maternal socio-demographic factors and breastfeeding practices was obtained through semi-structured interview. Stimulation in the home was measured using the HOME Inventory. Cognitive development was assessed using the Bayley Scales of Infant Development. Mean cognitive scores were significantly higher in breast-fed infants (110) compared with formula-fed infants (105). Breastfeeding duration had a positive linear association with cognitive scores at one year. In linear regression, the adjusted standardised beta for breastfeeding was 0.285, which remained significant after adjusting for confounding variables. Our data suggest that breastfeeding for more than a month may have a beneficial effect on cognitive development, and that there is a dose-response relationship between breastfeeding duration and cognitive development. These relationships are independent of the main confounding variables, including stimulation in the home.
... In row A, there are senior managers, doctors, information technology (IT) consultants, professors, scientists and (for instance) a company director, while in row B there are mainly teachers, nurses, social workers and people working in the social sector at a middle-low management level. So inTable 1, a distinction is made between two slightly different occupational groups within my sample: the one in cell A can be compared to the 'higher managerial and professional occupations' (the British National Statistics Socio- Economic Classification (NS-SEC) group one, in its eight-class version – see Rose & Pevalin, 2002, for this type of classification) and the other in cell B to the 'lower managerial occupations' and to the 'intermediate occupations' (the NS-SEC groups two and three). In operating this classification, we have tried to make a distinction similar to the one Devine makes in her study on class practices, where she distinguishes between a 'well-established middle-class' of medics and a 'more modest middle-class' of teachers (2004, p. 118). ...
This article investigated how work narratives of dual-earner families are materially and symbolically configured in discourses of reconciliation of work and home life. Following critical studies of the work–family interaction, this research takes into consideration symbolic and social structures and tries to look into the interrelation of factors such as job resources, job satisfaction, levels of autonomy with the self-esteem and sense of ‘self’ which parents derive from their paid work. Hochschild's concept of ‘emotional culture’ is used to explore how parents' experience of work is intertwined to their occupational groups and how it is associated with different narratives of work–family interaction. This study is conducted through qualitative methods, using in-depth semi-structured interviews on a sample of 27 dual-earner families. The data collected are composed of in-depth accounts that are then examined through the method of narrative analysis. The data indicate that, for divergent occupational levels, work generates different material and symbolic resources, which account for divergent narratives of work and home. The sociological analysis of occupational levels with the associated emotional culture of work and family then provides an exploratory model for understanding the links between social class and work–family interaction.
... For recent reviews of debates, seeHauser and Warren (1997);Crompton (1998);Rose and Pevalin (2003); andBreen (2004).Armstrong (1972) reminds us that the tradition of debating occupationally based social classifications can be traced at least as far back as Booth's 19 th century research. vanLeeuwen et al (2002) illustrate how the issues may be extended to historical data on occupational positions. ...
Objectives
The objective of this study is to assess the concordance and its association with sociocultural background of a four‐question survey with accelerometry in a multiethnic adolescent population, regarding sleep components. Based on questions from the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and adapted to a school context, the questionnaire focussed on estimating sleep onset time, wake‐up time and sleep duration on both weekdays and weekends. This subjective survey was compared with accelerometry data while also considering the influence of sociocultural factors (sex, place of living, ethnic community and socio‐economic status).
Methods
Adolescents aged 10.5–16 years ( n = 182) in New Caledonia completed the survey and wore an accelerometer for seven consecutive days. Accelerometry was used to determine sleep onset and wake‐up time using validated algorithms. Based on response comparison, Bland–Altman plots provided agreement between subjective answers and objective measures. We categorized participants' answers to the survey into underestimated , aligned and overestimated categories based on time discrepancies with accelerometry data. Multinomial regressions highlighted the sociocultural factors associated with discrepancies.
Results
Concordance between the accelerometer and self‐reported assessments was low particularly during weekends (18%, 26% and 19% aligned for onset sleep time, wake‐up time and sleep duration respectively) compared with weekdays (36%, 53% and 31% aligned, respectively). This means that the overall concordance was less than 30%. When considering the sociocultural factors, only place of living was associated with discrepancies in onset sleep time and wake‐up time primarily on weekdays. Rural adolescents were more likely to overestimate both onset sleep time (B = −1.97, p < 0.001) and wake‐up time (B = −1.69, p = 0.003).
Conclusions
The study found low concordance between self‐assessment and accelerometry outputs for sleep components. This was particularly low for weekend days and for participants living in rural areas. While the adapted four‐item questionnaire was useful and easy to complete, caution should be taken when making conclusions about sleep habits based solely on this measurement.
Physical activity (PA) is an important factor for the prevention of overweight and obesity, particularly during adolescence. This study focuses on the understudied adolescent population of New Caledonia with the aim to (1) determine the daily PA levels and estimate the sedentary time through out-of-school sitting time; (2) highlight the influence of sociodemographic and environmental factors, and (3) assess the associations of PA and sitting time with overweight and obesity. A sample of 508 school-going adolescents living in New Caledonia was surveyed about their PA habits using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire–Short Form, as well as about the context in which they usually engage in PA. The influences of the place of living and ethnic community were also investigated. Results indicated that about 66% of the adolescents performed an average of at least 60 min of PA daily. Both Melanesian adolescent boys and girls were more active than Caucasian adolescents but only when they lived in rural areas (females: 115 vs. 93 min/day, p = 0.018; males: 133 vs. 97 min/day, p = 0.018). Indeed, PA was reduced in an urban environment (females: 88 min/day; males: 95 min/day, p = 0.028; rural vs. urban in Melanesian adolescents). Melanesian adolescents also spent less time in out-of-school sitting than Caucasian adolescents independently of where they lived (females: 164 vs. 295 min/day, p < 0.001; males: 167 vs. 239 min/day, p = 0.001). Feeling safe was positively associated with PA levels (females: ORadj = 2.85, p < 0.001; males: ORadj = 4.45, p < 0.001). In the adolescent boys, accessibility to a suitable place was also an important factor (ORadj = 2.94, p = 0.002). Finally, while PA and sitting time were negatively associated with overweight in male adolescents (ORadj = 0.28, p = 0.044 and ORadj = 0.39, p = 0.004), they were not in females. Living in a rural area allowed the Melanesian adolescents to maintain a more active lifestyle with more physical activities and less sitting time. Our results also indicated that safety was an important driver for engagement in PA. The urban environment in New Caledonia appears to be a contributor of a less active lifestyle in adolescents.
This paper provides the first significant profile of offenders convicted of bribery in England & Wales (E&W) and Norway, based upon a sample of 75 cases from E&W and 46 from Norway, which were collected through searches of the media and other relevant sources between 2003 and 2015. The paper provides a profile of bribe payers and takers: in both E&W and Norway they are predominantly male, middle aged and involved in a median bribe of between £20,000 and £30,000; the sectors experiencing the most bribes paid are public administration and defence and the sector paying the most bribes is construction. In both countries, the period from the start of the crime to conviction was around six years. The paper also notes some significant differences between the two countries. In Norway there was a larger percentage of higher-grade professionals involved in bribery and in E&W detection by law enforcement was more common, suggesting greater interest by such bodies. The average sentence received by offenders was also slightly higher in E&W. The paper offers many other insights into the characteristics of bribery in the two countries in a rarely researched area.
Background
Adolescent obesity is prevalent in Pacific region ethnic groups (European, Melanesian and Polynesian) living in both urban and rural areas. Although body perception is an important factor of weight gain or loss, little is known about the body self-perceptions of Pacific region adolescents. This study therefore evaluated adolescent perceptions of body weight according to ethnicity (European, Melanesian or Polynesian), socioeconomic status (low, intermediate or high) and living area (rural or urban) in New Caledonia.
Methods
Sociodemographic and anthropomorphic data from 737 adolescents (351 boys and 386 girls) with ages ranging from 11 to 16 years were collected and analysed. The International Obesity Task Force (IOTF) standards were used to define weight status as normal-weight, underweight or overweight/obese. Weight perception was assessed from detailed questionnaires, with adolescents rating their own weight with the following descriptors: ‘about the right weight’, ‘too heavy’, or ‘too light’.
Results
Results showed that only 8.5% of normal-weight adolescents (7% boys and 10% girls) identifying themselves as ‘too heavy’. Normal-weight Melanesian adolescents were less likely than their European counterparts to assess themselves as too heavy (OR = 0.357). However, half the overweight/obese adolescents underestimated their weight status (53% boys and 48% girls). Weight misperception was associated with ethnicity, socioeconomic status and living area, with gender-specific differences.
Conclusions
The results of this study suggest that these sociodemographic factors should be taken into account when designing public health policies and health education school programmes in New Caledonia and, more broadly, the Pacific region.
Objectives
To investigate associations between a widely used measure of self-assessed health (limiting long-term illness, LLTI) and 11 long-term health conditions. Methods
Information on LLTI and health conditions was obtained from 2011 Census returns for a 28% representative sample of the Northern Ireland population (n = 342,868). Logistic regression was used to predict LLTI by sex and age group for each condition found in isolation, adjusting for marital status, social class, household car access, housing tenure, and educational attainment. The relationship between limitation and multimorbidity was also assessed. ResultsPrevalence of LLTI varied considerably among conditions when found in isolation; those with mobility problems were over 50 times more likely to report limitation than those with hearing loss. Women were less likely to report limitation than men [OR = 0.93 (0.90, 0.96)], but the pattern of associations with health conditions was similar for both sexes. Prevalence of LLTI increased with age and number of health conditions. ConclusionsLLTI was most closely associated with mobility problems. Limitation increased slightly with age, but patterns of LLTI across conditions were not sex dependent.
Background
Pain has been suggested to act as a stressor during aging, potentially accelerating declines in health and functioning. Our objective was to examine the longitudinal association between self-reported pain and the development, or worsening, of frailty among older men and women.
Methods
The study population consisted of 5,316 men and women living in private households in England, mean age 64.5 years, participating in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA). Data from Waves 2 and 6 of ELSA were used in this study with 8 years of follow-up. At Wave 2, participants were asked whether they were “often troubled with pain” and for those who reported yes, further information regarding the intensity of their pain (mild, moderate, or severe) was collected. Socioeconomic status (SES) was assessed using information about the current/most recent occupation and also net wealth. A frailty index (FI) was generated, with the presence of frailty defined as an FI >0.35. Among those without frailty at Wave 2, the association between pain at Wave 2 and frailty at Wave 6 was examined using logistic regression. We investigated whether pain predicted change in FI between Waves 2 and 6 using a negative binomial regression model. For both models adjustments were made for age, gender, lifestyle factors, depressive symptoms, and socioeconomic factors.
Results
At Wave 2, 455 (19.7%) men and 856 (28.7%) women reported they often experienced moderate or severe pain. Of the 5,159 participants who were nonfrail at Wave 2, 328 (6.4%) were frail by Wave 6. The mean FI was 0.11 (standard deviation [SD] = 0.1) at Wave 2 and 0.15 (SD = 0.1) at Wave 6. After adjustment for age, gender, body mass index, lifestyle factors, and depressive symptoms, compared to participants reporting no pain at Wave 2 those reporting moderate (odds ratio [OR] = 3.08, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 2.28, 4.16) or severe pain (OR = 3.78, 95% CI = 2.51, 5.71) were significantly more likely to be frail at Wave 6. This association persisted after further adjustment for either occupational class and/or net wealth level. Compared to those without pain, those with mild, moderate, or severe pain were also more likely to develop worsening frailty, as assessed using the FI, and this association persisted after adjustment for SES. There was no evidence that the association between pain and frailty was influenced by gender.
Conclusion
Pain is associated with an increased risk and intensity of frailty in older men and women. Socioeconomic factors contribute to the occurrence of frailty; though in our study do not explain the relationship between pain and frailty.
This article asks whether standard accounts of class reproduction apply among migrants and their descendants as among the majority group, whether there is a process of assimilation across generations toward the overall (British) pattern of class reproduction, whether the trends over time in absolute and relative mobility among the majority population are mirrored among migrants and their descendants, and whether trends in class reproduction are mirrored in trends in ethnic stratification. Using national representative surveys covering four decades, the authors find a major generational shift, with the first generation experiencing a notable social decline but the second generation having a clear advancement. Relative mobility rates among migrants and their descendants are close to those of the majority group and exhibit similar trends over time. Ethnic stratification also appears to be slowly declining, although the persistence of unemployment among the second generation qualifies the optimistic story of ethnic socioeconomic assimilation.
This research briefing shows the range of activities and experiences that relate to the standard of living of older people in Scotland.The data furthers our understanding of housing, health, unpaid care and the inequalities that relate to these as people get older.
The high prevalence rates of child overweight and obesity within the UK is a serious problem, and one that has received a lot of attention from policy makers, researchers and the media. There is some evidence for socioeconomic inequalities in child overweight and obesity, with children in less advantaged socioeconomic groups at an increased risk of being overweight or obese. The nature of these inequalities is not well understood. Within this thesis I consider different aspects of socioeconomic status and their relationship with child overweight and obesity. There are three distinct strands of the investigation. Firstly, I consider whether socioeconomic inequalities in child overweight and obesity have changed over time. This is followed by two separate analyses of the relationship between obesity and overweight with parental income and education.
Biografische Lebenswelten, Einwanderung, GfK Verein Nürnberg, Migranten, Migrationshintergrund, Mikrozensus 2009, Qualitative Heuristik, Soziale Schichtung
Objectives:
To examine the proportion of normal-weight adolescents who consider themselves to be too heavy (size overestimation), and the proportion of overweight or obese adolescents who consider themselves to be about the right weight or too light (size underestimation), in large population-based samples collected over 8 years in England.
Methods:
Data were from the Health Survey for England between 2005 and 2012: an annual survey of households representative of the English population. We analysed data from 4979 adolescents (2668 boys, 2311 girls) aged 13 to 15 years old whose weight status was defined as normal weight or overweight/obese based on body mass index standard deviation scores (BMI-SDS) derived from objective measurements of height and weight and using International Obesity Task Force standards. Weight perception was based on the adolescent's choice from the following descriptors: ‘about the right weight', ‘too heavy' or ‘too light'.
Results:
The majority of normal-weight adolescents (83% of boys, 84% of girls) correctly identified themselves as ‘about the right weight'. Overestimation was uncommon, with only 7% of normal-weight teens (4% of boys, 11% of girls) identifying themselves as ‘too heavy'. In contrast, only 60% of overweight/obese adolescents (53% of boys, 68% of girls) correctly identified themselves as ‘too heavy', whereas 39% (47% of boys, 32% of girls) underestimated, identifying themselves as ‘about the right weight' or ‘too light'. There were no significant changes in BMI-SDS or body size estimation over time (2005–2012).
Conclusions:
Overestimation of body weight among normal-weight adolescents is relatively uncommon; potentially a cause for celebration. However, almost half of boys and a third of girls with a BMI placing them in the overweight or obese BMI range perceived themselves to be about the right weight. Lack of awareness of excess weight among overweight and obese adolescents could be a cause for concern.
Objectives:
In the public mind, later life is being transformed by the emerging possibility of a flourishing third age with sustained quality of life. We draw trajectories of life quality measured using CASP-19 over eight years. We refine these trajectories by jointly modelling attrition, since older people tend to leave longitudinal studies (attrite) not at random.
Methods:
Growth curve models are applied to the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing waves 1 to 5. Then joint model is estimated where attrition is considered. Extensive predictors are entered including demographic attributes, social and economic status, health conditions, and behaviours.
Results:
Strong non-linear age trajectory of life quality is revealed by the growth curve models where the peak is achieved in the late 60s. Then the joint model uncovers the peak somewhat later in time, and also reveals secular improvement in life quality experienced by recent cohorts. Sharp estimates for many predictors of higher levels of life quality are also found.
Conclusion:
For the first time, the trajectories of life quality in the third age are drawn and improvement across cohorts is demonstrated. The contributions are estimated for predictors amenable to intervention such as social capital. This can help in policy discussion on improving the lives of older people in the third age.
Background:This paper aims to assess whether 7-year-olds’ physical activity is associated with family and area-level measures of the physical and socio-economic environments.
Methods: We analysed the association of environments with physical activity in 6497 singleton children from the UK Millennium Cohort Study with reliable accelerometer data (≥2 days and ≥10 h/day). Activity levels were assessed as counts per minute; minutes of moderate to vigorous activity (MVPA); and whether meeting recommended guidelines (≥60 min/day MVPA).
Results: Higher levels of children's physical activity were associated with households without use of a car and with having a television in a child's bedroom (for counts per minute only). Aspects of the home socioeconomic environment that were associated with more children's physical activity were lone motherhood, lower maternal socio-economic position and education, family income below 60% national median, and not owning the home. Children's activity levels were higher when parents perceived their neighbourhood as poor for bringing up children and also when families were living in the most deprived areas. Relationships were independent of characteristics such as child's body mass index and ethnic group. When adjusted for physical and socioeconomic correlates, the factors remaining significant in all outcomes were: household car usage and maternal education.
Conclusions: Although physical and socio-economic environments are associated with children’s physical activity, much of the variation appears to be determined by the child's home socio-economic circumstances rather than the wider environment where they live.
Open Access link: http://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2014/10/30/jech-2014-204287.full.pdf+html
There is strong evidence for the link between high dietary sodium and increased risk of cardiovascular disease which drives the need to reduce salt content in foods. In this study, herb and spice blends were used to enhance consumer acceptability of a low salt tomato soup (0.26% w/w). Subjects (n=148) scored their liking of tomato soup samples over five consecutive days. The first and last days were pre-and post-exposure visits where all participants rated three tomato soup samples; standard, low salt and low salt with added herbs and spices. The middle 3 days were the repeated exposure phase where participants were divided into three balanced groups; consuming the standard soup, the low salt soup, or the low salt soup with added herbs and spices. Reducing salt in the tomato soup led to a significant decline in consumer acceptability, and incorporating herbs and spices did not lead to an immediate enhancement in liking. However, inclusion of herbs and spices enhanced the perception of the salty taste of the low salt soup to the same level as the standard. Repeated exposure to the herbs and spice-modified soup led to a significant increase in the overall liking and liking of flavour, texture and aftertaste of the soup, whereas no changes in liking were observed for the standard and low salt tomato soups over repeated exposure. Moreover, a positive trend in increasing the post-exposure liking of the herbs and spices soup was observed. The findings suggest that the use of herbs and spices is a useful approach to reduce salt content in foods; however, herbs and spices should be chosen carefully to complement the food as large contrasts in flavour can polarise consumer liking.
Social inequalities in the United States resulted in negative health outcomes for the African Americans. Their stressful living conditions of poverty, discrimination, racism, abuse and rejection from American society contribute to their negative health outcomes. The lifestyles of African Americans have been influenced by poverty and prior injustices, which have molded their worldview of health and illness. Dr. Martin Luther King, national civil rights leader, brought about social change with much prayer; however, he went a step further with collective gatherings to include the power of non-violence massive public demonstrations. This paper is an analytical review of the literature addressing social inequalities impacting on health inequalities of African Americans resulting in health disparities. Policy changes are propose by implementing transformation development and community empowerment models as frameworks for community/public health nurses in guiding African American communities with addressing health disparities. These models empower members of the community to participate in a collaborative effort in making political and social changes to improve their overall health outcomes.
Ethnic minorities have long experienced substantial disadvantages in the labour market. Following recommendations from the National Employment Panel, the Department for Work and Pensions commissioned 'correspondence tests' for the presence of racial discrimination by employers when recruiting staff. The research showed significant levels of net discrimination against ethnic minorities and significantly higher levels of discrimination in the private sector than in the public sector. The Department therefore commissioned the present report to explore the feasibility of constructing a race equality index in order to understand, in detail, how discrimination is happening, how proactive businesses are in promoting race equality in recruitment, retention and promotion, and to monitor trends over time in order to determine whether new measures to promote race equality should be introduced by government. It is not at present practicable to construct a regular annual measure that captures all the separate employer-side mechanisms that contribute to ethnic minority disadvantage in the private sector. However, an index based on the Labour Force Survey and covering the three outcome measures of ethnic minority under-representation in the private sector, in managerial occupations, and pay disparities can be constructed. Our proposed index involves adjusting for individual characteristics and geographical region, just as the correspondence tests for discrimination involve the matching of ethnic minority and majority group applicants. The index shows that, overall, the inequalities have been fairly stable over time, although among the separate components there is clear evidence of some equalisation with respect to employment.
Those empirical sociologists in Britain who are concerned with social classification have tended to avoid any detailed evaluation of the long-established and ubiquitous official system. Such a discussion is inhibited by our current state of ignorance regarding its historical origins. An investigation of the exact chronology of its development and elucidation of its author's intentions is, therefore, undertaken. This reveals a complex and protracted genesis, over the first three decades of this century. The final form of the official social classification was determined by the intellectual preoccupations of its progenitor, T. H. C. Stevenson, in seeking a comprehensive alternative explanation to that originally proposed by hereditarian 'sociologists', to account for the phenomenon of fertility decline. Consequently, the now familiar five-graded hierarchy entails certain specific methodological assumptions and theoretical limitations, which, it is suggested, may constitute undesirable conceptual impedimenta for modern sociologists.
The aim was to compare four different measures of women's social class (interview and census based) as predictors of well known social gradients in reproductive outcomes. The intent was to address two obstacles that confront research in the United States regarding social gradients in women's health: how women's social class should be measured, and the absence of socioeconomic data in most health records.
The study was a retrospective cohort analysis, using a community based random sample. Setting--Alameda County, California, 1987.
51 black and 50 white women, ages 20 to 80 years, identified by random digit dialling, were interviewed by telephone.
Census data were linked to individual records via the respondents' addresses. Using number of full term pregnancies as an example, multiple linear regression analyses demonstrated that individual class was not significantly associated with this outcome, whereas household class was: women from non-working-class households had 0.8 fewer such pregnancies than women from working class households (95% confidence interval [CI] = -1.4, -0.1). The block group measure functioned most like the household class measure (beta = -0.7, 95% CI = -1.4, 0.1), while the census tract measure was non-significant (beta = -0.4, 95% CI = -1.2, 0.4). Similar results were obtained for the outcomes: age at first full term pregnancy, percent of early terminated pregnancies, and yearly income.
These results suggest block group data may offer a uniform source of social class information that can be appended to individual health records, and that this strategy is not invalidated by concerns regarding ecological fallacy.
Most studies of inequalities and access to health care have used income as the sole indicator of social stratification. Despite the significance of social theory in health insurance research, there are no empirical studies comparing the ability of different models of social stratification to predict health insurance coverage. The aim of this study is to provide a comparative analysis using a variety of theory-driven indicators of social stratification and assess the relative strength of the association between these indicators and private health insurance. Data were collected in a 1993 telephone interview of a random digit dialing sample of the white population in the Baltimore Metropolitan Statistical Area. Indicators of social stratification included employment status, full-time work, education, occupation, industry, household income, firm size, and three types of assets: ownership, organizational, and skill/credential. The association between social stratification and private health insurance was strongest for those having higher household incomes, having attained at least a bachelor's degree, and working in a firm with more than 50 employees, followed by being an owner or manager, and by being employed. The addition of education and firm size improved the prediction of the household income model. The authors conclude that studies of inequalities in health insurance coverage can benefit from the inclusion of theory-driven indicators of social stratification such as human capital, labor market segmentation, and control over productive assets.
Increasing social inequalities in health in the United States and elsewhere, coupled with growing inequalities in income and wealth, have refocused attention on social class as a key determinant of population health. Routine analysis using conceptually coherent and consistent measures of socioeconomic position in US public health research and surveillance, however, remains rare. This review discusses concepts and methodologies concerning, and guidelines for measuring, social class and other aspects of socioeconomic position (e.g. income, poverty, deprivation, wealth, education). These data should be collected at the individual, household, and neighborhood level, to characterize both childhood and adult socioeconomic position; fluctuations in economic resources during these time periods also merit consideration. Guidelines for linking census-based socioeconomic measures and health data are presented, as are recommendations for analyses involving social class, race/ethnicity, and gender. Suggestions for research on socioeconomic measures are provided, to aid monitoring steps toward social equity in health.
The relationship between social class and substance use disorders (SUDs) is explored and compared to the relationship between SES and SUDs. Social class and SES are two different conceptualizations of socioeconomic inequality (SEI) which emanate from two different theoretical orientations in sociology. SES is commonly used in epidemiological research and is usually measured in terms of education, income or occupational prestige. Social class is less known and less used. Here, following the work of Wright et al. (Wright, E. O., Hachen, D. and Costello, C. et al. (1982) The American class structure. American Sociological Review 47, 709-726) it is measured in terms of four types of control people have in their work place: ownership, control over budget decisions, control over other workers, and control over one's own work. Data are derived from an epidemiological survey, conducted in Israel, using a two stage sampling procedure for the identification of cases. In the first stage 4914 respondents were screened with the Psychiatric Epidemiological Research Interview (PERI). In the second stage (n = 2741), those who screened positive (and a sample of the negatives) were diagnosed by psychiatrists using a structured interview that yielded diagnoses according to the Research Diagnostic Criteria (RDC). The results indicate that those who are advantaged in terms of ownership, i.e. self-employed, have higher rates of SUDs compared to employees. Furthermore, it appears that most disorders have an onset subsequent to entry into the current job, indicating that ownership plays a causal role in the onset of SUDs rather than the other way around. These results are contrasted with those of a previous report from the same study by Dohrenwend et al. (Dohrenwend, B. P., Levav, I. and Shrout, P. E. et al. (1992) Socioeconomic status and psychiatric disorders: the causation selection issue. Science 255, 946-952) which showed just the opposite association between SES and SUDs, i.e. those who are advantaged in terms of SES have lower rates of SUDs. As an explanation of these apparently conflicting results, the possibility is entertained that social class and SES represent independent causal pathways to the onset of SUDs with social class mainly related to primary SUDs and SES mainly to secondary SUDs.
In social epidemiology, to speak of theory is simultaneously to speak of society and biology. It is, I will argue, to speak of embodiment. At issue is how we literally incorporate, biologically, the world around us, a world in which we simultaneously are but one biological species among many—and one whose labour and ideas literally have transformed the face of this earth. To conceptualize and elucidate the myriad social and biological processes resulting in embodiment and its manifestation in populations' epidemiological profiles, we need theory. This is because theory helps us structure our ideas, so as to explain causal connections between specified phenomena within and across specified domains by using interrelated sets of ideas whose plausibility can be tested by human action and thought.1–3 Grappling with notions of causation, in turn, raises not only complex philosophical issues but also, in the case of social epidemiology, issues of accountability and agency: simply invoking abstract notions of ‘society’ and disembodied ‘genes’ will not suffice. Instead, the central question becomes: who and what is responsible for population patterns of health, disease, and well-being, as manifested in present, past and changing social inequalities in health?