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Measuring socioeconomic status in health research in developing countries: Should we be focusing on households, communities or both?

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  • Jean-Christophe Fotso
  • Barthelemy Kuate-Defo

Abstract

Research on the effects of socioeconomic well-being on health is important for policy makers in developing countries, where limited resources make it crucial to use existing health care resources to the best advantage. This paper develops and tests a set of measures of socioeconomic status indicators for predicting health status in developing countries. We construct socioeconomic indexes that capture both household and community attributes so as to allow us to separate the social from the purely economic dimensions of the socioeconomic status within a cross-national perspective, with applications to data from Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) fielded in five African countries in the 1990s. This study demonstrates the distinctive contributions of socioeconomic indexes measured at the household vs. community level in understanding inequalities in health and survival and underlines the importance of going beyond the purely economic view of socioeconomic status to cover the multidimensional as well as multilevel concept of economic and social inequality. Copyright Springer 2005

Suggested Citation

  • Jean-Christophe Fotso & Barthelemy Kuate-Defo, 2005. "Measuring socioeconomic status in health research in developing countries: Should we be focusing on households, communities or both?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 72(2), pages 189-237, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:soinre:v:72:y:2005:i:2:p:189-237
    DOI: 10.1007/s11205-004-5579-8
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Ferdi Botha & Frikkie Booysen & Edwin Wouters, 2018. "Family Functioning and Socioeconomic Status in South African Families: A Test of the Social Causation Hypothesis," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 137(2), pages 789-811, June.
    2. Zhou, Min & Tan, Shukui & Tao, Yinghui & Lu, Yongzhong & Zhang, Zuo & Zhang, Lu & Yan, Danping, 2017. "Neighborhood socioeconomics, food environment and land use determinants of public health: Isolating the relative importance for essential policy insights," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 246-253.
    3. Petrou, Stavros & Kupek, Emil, 2010. "Poverty and childhood undernutrition in developing countries: A multi-national cohort study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(7), pages 1366-1373, October.
    4. Joseph Hackman & Daniel Hruschka & Mariya Vizireanu, 2021. "An Agricultural Wealth Index for Multidimensional Wealth Assessments," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 47(1), pages 237-254, March.
    5. Ferdi Botha & Edwin Wouters & Frikkie Booysen, 2018. "Happiness, Socioeconomic Status, and Family Functioning in South African Households: a Structural Equation Modelling Approach," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 13(4), pages 947-989, December.
    6. Muhammad Akbar & Abdullah & Amjad Naveed & Shabib Haider Syed, 2022. "Does an Improvement in Rural Infrastructure Contribute to Alleviate Poverty in Pakistan? A Spatial Econometric Analysis," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 162(1), pages 475-499, July.
    7. Ferdi Botha & Frikkie Booysen & Edwin Wouters, 2018. "Satisfaction with Family Life in South Africa: The Role of Socioeconomic Status," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 19(8), pages 2339-2372, December.
    8. Abayomi Samuel Oyekale, 2015. "Assessment of Malawian Mothers’ Malaria Knowledge, Healthcare Preferences and Timeliness of Seeking Fever Treatments for Children Under Five," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-20, January.
    9. Borja-Vega, Christian & de la Fuente, Alejandro, 2013. "Municipal vulnerability to climate change and climate related events in Mexico," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6417, The World Bank.
    10. Umaru Hauwa Aduwamai & Mahmud Bilkisu Abubakar, 2019. "Effect of Some Weaning Foods on Weanling Albino Rats," Biomedical Journal of Scientific & Technical Research, Biomedical Research Network+, LLC, vol. 21(2), pages 15702-15706, September.
    11. Chapoto, Antony & Kirimi, Lilian & Kadiyala, Suneetha, 2012. "Poverty and Prime-Age Mortality in Eastern and Southern Africa: Evidence from Zambia and Kenya," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(9), pages 1839-1853.
    12. Firestone, Rebecca & Punpuing, Sureeporn & Peterson, Karen E. & Acevedo-Garcia, Dolores & Gortmaker, Steven L., 2011. "Child overweight and undernutrition in Thailand: Is there an urban effect?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(9), pages 1420-1428, May.
    13. Jose D Meisel & Olga L Sarmiento & Camilo Olaya & Pablo D Lemoine & Juan A Valdivia & Roberto Zarama, 2018. "Towards a novel model for studying the nutritional stage dynamics of the Colombian population by age and socioeconomic status," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(2), pages 1-22, February.
    14. Marta Vericat-Ferrer & Alba Ayala & Policarpo Ncogo & Juan Eyene-Acuresila & Belén García & Agustín Benito & María Romay-Barja, 2022. "Knowledge, Attitudes, and Stigma: The Perceptions of Tuberculosis in Equatorial Guinea," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(14), pages 1-12, July.

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