The effect on students’ academic progression of relative school socioeconomic status

It has been widely studied that students’ academic achievement may be affected by the socioeconomic characteristics of their peers. Nevertheless, little is known on whether the relative position that students occupied within their primary school peers in terms of socioeconomic background could be affecting their academic progression from primary to secondary education. We make use of census and longitudinal data to analyse this issue for the lowest performer and largest Spanish region, i.e., Andalusia, by the use of a value-added methodology. Our results show that students’ relative socioeconomic position within their primary school peers may affect their academic progression, even after controlling by students’ socioeconomic status. This result highlights the relevance that not only students’ own socioeconomic background has on their future academic progression and, by extension, labour market position, but also the influence that their peers have on it.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Socioeconomic Inequalities in Mortality Rates in Old Age in the World Health Organization Europe Region

Socioeconomic adversity is among the foremost fundamental causes of human suffering, and this is no less true in old age. Recent reports on socioeconomic inequalities in mortality rate in old age suggest that a low socioeconomic position continues to increase the risk of death even among the oldest old. We aimed to examine the evidence for socioeconomic mortality rate inequalities in old age, including information about associations with various indicators of socioeconomic position and for various geographic locations within the World Health Organization Region for Europe. The articles included in this review leave no doubt that inequalities in mortality rate by socioeconomic position persist into the oldest ages for both men and women in all countries for which information is available, although the relative risk measures observed were rarely higher than 2.00. Still, the available evidence base is heavily biased geographically, inasmuch as it is based largely on national studies from Nordic and Western European countries and local studies from urban areas in Southern Europe. This bias will hamper the design of European-wide policies to reduce inequalities in mortality rate. We call for a continuous update of the empiric evidence on socioeconomic inequalities in mortality rate

Direct and indirect influences of objective socioeconomic position on adolescent health: the mediating roles of subjective socioeconomic status and lifestyles

The use of composite indices and subjective measures to evaluate socioeconomic position, taking into account the effect of inequalities on adolescent health-related behaviors, can contribute to understanding the effect of inequalities on health during adolescence. The aim of this study was to examine the direct and indirect contribution of objective and subjective socioeconomic factors in a broad range of health and lifestyles outcomes. The data come from a representative sample of adolescents (N = 15,340; M age = 13.69) of the Health Behavior in School-aged Children study in Spain. Structural equation modeling was used for data analysis. A global index for evaluating objective socioeconomic position predicted both health and healthy lifestyles. Subjective socioeconomic status mediated the relationship between objective socioeconomic position and health but did not have a significant effect on healthy lifestyles when objective indicators were considered. Lastly, fit indices of the multiple-mediator model—including the direct effect of objective socioeconomic position on health and its indirect effects through the subjective perception of wealth and lifestyles—explained 28.7% of global health variance. Interventions aimed at reducing the impact of health inequalities should address, in addition to material deprivation, the psychological and behavioral consequences of feeling poor.Consejería de Economía, Innovación y Ciencia de la Junta de Andalucía P11—SEJ—800

Socioeconomic disadvantage in childhood as a predictor of excessive gestational weight gain and obesity in midlife adulthood.

BackgroundLower childhood socioeconomic position is associated with greater risk of adult obesity among women, but not men. Pregnancy-related weight changes may contribute to this gender difference. The objectives of this study were to determine the associations between: 1. childhood socioeconomic disadvantage and midlife obesity; 2. excessive gestational weight gain (GWG) and midlife obesity; and 3. childhood socioeconomic disadvantage and excessive GWG, among a representative sample of childbearing women.MethodsWe constructed marginal structural models for seven measures of childhood socioeconomic position for 4780 parous women in the United States, using National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (1979-2010) data. Institute of Medicine definitions were used for excessive GWG; body mass index ≥30 at age 40 defined midlife obesity. Analyses were separated by race/ethnicity. Additionally, we estimated controlled direct effects of childhood socioeconomic disadvantage on midlife obesity under a condition of never gaining excessively in pregnancy.ResultsLow parental education, but not other measures of childhood disadvantage, was associated with greater midlife obesity among non-black non-Hispanic women. Among black and Hispanic mothers, childhood socioeconomic disadvantage was not consistently associated with midlife obesity. Excessive GWG was associated with greater midlife obesity in all racial/ethnic groups. Childhood socioeconomic disadvantage was not statistically significantly associated with excessive GWG in any group. Controlled direct effects were not consistently weaker than total effects.ConclusionsChildhood socioeconomic disadvantage was associated with adult obesity, but not with excessive gestational weight gain, and only for certain disadvantage measures among non-black non-Hispanic mothers. Prevention of excessive GWG may benefit all groups through reducing obesity, but excessive GWG does not appear to serve as a mediator between childhood socioeconomic position and adult obesity in women

Contribution of the physical environment to socioeconomic gradients in walking in the Whitehall II study

Socioeconomic gradients in walking are well documented but the underlying reasons remain unclear. We examined the contribution of objective measures of the physical environment at residence to socioeconomic gradients in walking in 3363 participants (50-74years) from the Whitehall II study (2002-2004). Individual-level socioeconomic position was measured as most recent employment grade. The contribution of multiple measures of the physical environment to socioeconomic position gradients in self-reported log transformed minutes walking/week was examined by linear regression. Objective measures of the physical environment contributed only to a small extent to socioeconomic gradients in walking in middle-aged and older adults living in Greater London, UK. Of these, only the number of killed and seriously injured road traffic casualties per km of road was predictive of walking. More walking in areas with high rates of road traffic casualties per km of road may signal an effect not of injury risk but of more central locations with multiple destinations within short distances ('compact neighbourhoods'). This has potential implications for urban planning to promote physical activity

Obstetrician-assessed maternal health at pregnancy predicts offspring future health

Background: We aimed to examine the association between obstetrician assessment of maternal physical health at the time of pregnancy and offspring cardiovascular disease risk.<p></p> Methods and Principal Findings: We examined this association in a birth cohort of 11,106 individuals, with 245,000 person years of follow-up. We were concerned that any associations might be explained by residual confounding, particularly by family socioeconomic position. In order to explore this we used multivariable regression models in which we adjusted for a range of indicators of socioeconomic position and we explored the specificity of the association. Specificity of association was explored by examining associations with other health related outcomes. Maternal physical health was associated with cardiovascular disease: adjusted (socioeconomic position, complications of pregnancy, birthweight and childhood growth at mean age 5) hazard ratio comparing those described as having poor or very poor health at the time of pregnancy to those with good or very good health was 1.55 (95%CI: 1.05, 2.28) for coronary heart disease, 1.91 (95%CI: 0.99, 3.67) for stroke and 1.57 (95%CI: 1.13, 2.18) for either coronary heart disease or stroke. However, this association was not specific. There were strong associations for other outcomes that are known to be related to socioeconomic position (3.61 (95%CI: 1.04, 12.55) for lung cancer and 1.28 (95%CI:1.03, 1.58) for unintentional injury), but not for breast cancer (1.10 (95%CI:0.48, 2.53)).<p></p> Conclusions and Significance: These findings demonstrate that a simple assessment of physical health (based on the appearance of eyes, skin, hair and teeth) of mothers at the time of pregnancy is a strong indicator of the future health risk of their offspring for common conditions that are associated with poor socioeconomic position and unhealthy behaviours. They do not support a specific biological link between maternal health across her life course and future risk of cardiovascular disease in her offspring.<p></p&gt

Individual position diversity in dependence socioeconomic networks increases economic output

The availability of big data recorded from massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) allows us to gain a deeper understanding of the potential connection between individuals' network positions and their economic outputs. We use a statistical filtering method to construct dependence networks from weighted friendship networks of individuals. We investigate the 30 distinct motif positions in the 13 directed triadic motifs which represent microscopic dependences among individuals. Based on the structural similarity of motif positions, we further classify individuals into different groups. The node position diversity of individuals is found to be positively correlated with their economic outputs. We also find that the economic outputs of leaf nodes are significantly lower than that of the other nodes in the same motif. Our findings shed light on understanding the influence of network structure on economic activities and outputs in socioeconomic system.Comment: 19 pages, 5 figure

Does IQ explain socioeconomic inequalities in health? Evidence from a population based cohort study in the west of Scotland

<b>Objective</b>: To test the hypothesis that IQ is a fundamental cause of socioeconomic inequalities in health. <b>Design</b>: Cross sectional and prospective cohort study, in which indicators of IQ were assessed by written test and socioeconomic position by self report. <b>Setting</b>: West of Scotland. <b>Participants</b>: 1347 people (739 women) aged 56 in 1987. <b>Main outcome measures</b>: Total mortality and coronary heart disease mortality (ascertained between 1987 and 2004); respiratory function, self reported minor psychiatric morbidity, long term illness, and self perceived health (all assessed in 1988). <b>Results</b>: In sex adjusted analyses, indices of socioeconomic position (childhood and current social class, education, income, and area deprivation) were significantly associated with each health outcome. Thus the greatest risk of ill health and mortality was evident in the most socioeconomically disadvantaged groups, as expected. After adjustment for IQ, a marked attenuation in risk occurred for poor mental health (range of attenuation in risk ratio across the five socioeconomic indicators: 15-58%), long term illness (25-53%), poor self perceived health (41-56%), respiratory function (44-66%), coronary heart disease mortality (31-111%), and total mortality (45-131%). Despite the clear reduction in the magnitude of these effects after controlling for IQ, in half of the associations examined the risk of ill health in socioeconomically disadvantaged people was still at least twice that of advantaged people. Statistical significance was lost for only 5/25 separate socioeconomic health gradients that showed significant relations in sex adjusted analyses. <b>Conclusions</b>: Scores from the IQ test used here did not completely explain the socioeconomic gradients in health. However, controlling for IQ did lead to a marked reduction in the magnitude of these gradients. Further exploration of the currently scant information about IQ, socioeconomic position, and health is needed

Individual and community-level socioeconomic position and its association with adolescents experience of childhood sexual abuse : a multilevel analysis of six countries in Sub-Saharan Africa

Background: Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) is a substantial global health and human rights problem and consequently a growing concern in sub-Saharan Africa. We examined the association between individual and community-level socioeconomic status (SES) and the likelihood of reporting CSA. Methods: We applied multiple multilevel logistic regression analysis on Demographic and Health Survey data for 6,351female adolescents between the ages of 15 and 18 years from six countries in sub-Saharan Africa, between 2006 and 2008. Results: About 70% of the reported cases of CSA were between 14 and 17 years. Zambia had the highest proportion of reported cases of CSA (5.8%). At the individual and community level, we found that there was no association between CSA and socioeconomic position. This study provides evidence that the likelihood of reporting CSA cut across all individual SES as well as all community socioeconomic strata. Conclusions: We found no evidence of socioeconomic differentials in adolescents’ experience of CSA, suggesting that adolescents from the six countries studied experienced CSA regardless of their individual- and community-level socioeconomic position. However, we found some evidence of geographical clustering, adolescents in the same community are subject to common contextual influences. Further studies are needed to explore possible effects of countries’ political, social, economic, legal, and cultural impact on Childhood sexual abuse

A Theory of Relative Deprivation and Myopic Addiction

Myopic use of mind-altering substances is proposed to be equal to the product of the user’s current levels of relative-deprivation feeling and substance-tolerance. If initially this product is sufficiently large the user is trapped in a deprivation-use-addiction vicious cycle. There may be a relatively high addiction and socioeconomic position steady state and a relatively low one. If the users are initially located in the high steady state, an increase in treatment is clearly socially desirable. In contrast, the possible improvement of users’ socioeconomic position from increasing law-enforcement or socioeconomic opportunities might be dominated by a rise in users’ addiction level.Relative deprivation, myopia, substance abuse, addiction