[Indicators of social inequalities for school-age children health surveys].

Data from Health Behaviour in School-aged Children: A WHO Cross-national Collaborative Study conducted in Poland in 2002 on the representative sample of 6383 pupils aged 11-15 yrs, were used to present different indicators of socioeconomic status. Traditional occupational measures are inappropriate for use in research on adolescents because of their limited ability to describe parents' occupation. Researchers involved in HBSC study developed two non-occupational measures that could be useful as social inequalities indicators: perceived family wealth (PFW) and family affluence scale (FAS). FAS scale is well correlated with macroeconomic measures on the national and international level. The percentage of families classified in the low FAS category (less than 3 points on the scale ranged from 0 to 7) is twice higher in Poland than in EU countries (43.1% vs. 18.1%). FAS is easy to obtain, and more objective than PFW. Subjective family wealth is not recommended for subjective health outcome and quality of life assessment. For different health outcome and various populations the shape and strength of relationship between socioeconomic status and health or health related behaviors may change.