Galobardes Bruna, Lynch John, Smith George Davey
Department of Social Medicine, University of Bristol, Canynge Hall, Bristol, UK.
Br Med Bull. 2007;81-82:21-37. doi: 10.1093/bmb/ldm001. Epub 2007 Feb 6.
In this article we review different measures of socioeconomic position (SEP) and their uses in health-related research.
Socioeconomic circumstances influence health.
Generally, poorer socioeconomic circumstances lead to poorer health. This has generated a search for generic mechanisms that could explain such a general association. However, we propose that there is a greater variation in the association between SEP and health than is generally acknowledged when specific health outcomes are investigated. We propose that studying these variations provide a better understanding of the aetiological mechanisms relating specific diseases with specific exposures. AREAS TO DEVELOP RESEARCH: Using different indicators of SEP in health research can better capture these variations and is important when evaluating the full contribution of confounding by socioeconomic conditions. We propose that using an array of SEP indicators within a life course framework also offers considerable opportunity to explore causal pathways in disease aetiology.
在本文中，我们回顾了社会经济地位（SEP）的不同衡量指标及其在健康相关研究中的应用。
社会经济状况影响健康。
一般来说，社会经济状况较差会导致健康状况较差。这引发了对能够解释这种普遍关联的通用机制的探索。然而，我们认为，在调查特定健康结果时，SEP与健康之间的关联存在比普遍认识到的更大差异。我们建议，研究这些差异能更好地理解将特定疾病与特定暴露联系起来的病因机制。
在健康研究中使用不同的SEP指标可以更好地捕捉这些差异，并且在评估社会经济状况造成的混杂因素的全部影响时很重要。我们建议，在生命历程框架内使用一系列SEP指标也为探索疾病病因中的因果途径提供了大量机会。
