Cologne, Germany.
Int J Public Health. 2011 Aug;56(4):373-84. doi: 10.1007/s00038-010-0154-3. Epub 2010 May 22.
Current study introduces the living standard concept as an alternative approach of measuring poverty and compares its explanatory power to an income-based poverty measure with regard to subjective health status of the German population.
Analyses are based on the German Socio-Economic Panel (2001, 2003 and 2005) and refer to binary logistic regressions of poor subjective health status with regard to each poverty condition, their duration and their causal influence from a previous time point. To calculate the discriminate power of both poverty indicators, initially the indicators were considered separately in regression models and subsequently, both were included simultaneously.
The analyses reveal a stronger poverty-health relationship for the living standard indicator. An inadequate living standard in 2005, longer spells of an inadequate living standard between 2001, 2003 and 2005 as well as an inadequate living standard at a previous time point is significantly strongly associated with subjective health than income poverty.
Our results challenge conventional measurements of the relationship between poverty and health that probably has been underestimated by income measures so far.
本研究引入生活水平概念作为衡量贫困的一种替代方法，并将其解释能力与基于收入的贫困衡量标准进行比较，以评估德国人口的主观健康状况。
分析基于德国社会经济面板调查（2001、2003 和 2005 年），并参考二元逻辑回归分析，以评估在每种贫困状况、其持续时间以及从先前时间点的因果影响方面，主观健康状况较差的情况。为了计算这两种贫困指标的判别能力，首先在回归模型中分别考虑了这些指标，然后同时纳入了这两个指标。
分析结果表明，生活水平指标与贫困和健康之间的关系更为密切。2005 年生活水平不适当、2001 年至 2005 年期间生活水平不适当的时间较长，以及之前时间点的生活水平不适当，与主观健康状况显著相关，其关联程度强于收入贫困。
我们的研究结果挑战了传统的贫困与健康之间关系的衡量方法，这些方法可能迄今为止一直低估了收入衡量方法的作用。
