1 OD Public Health and Surveillance, Scientific Institute of Public Health, Bruxelles, Belgium.
Eur J Public Health. 2013 Dec;23(6):981-5. doi: 10.1093/eurpub/cks158. Epub 2012 Nov 26.
Socio-economic inequalities in health survey participation can jeopardize the extrapolation of the survey findings to the total population. Earlier research, based on aggregated data, showed that in Belgium less-educated people with poor health were less likely to participate in a health survey. In this article, the association by socio-economic status and household non-response in a health survey is examined.
A linkage between the Belgian Health Survey 2001 with Census 2001 enabled us to evaluate the participation by socio-economic status.
We observed that the socio-economic position was a determinant of health survey participation: participation rate was significantly lower in households with a lower socio-economic profile.
Socio-economic inequalities in participation can introduce a bias in the health survey findings. Strategies targeting improvement of the participation of lower socio-economic groups need to be considered.
健康调查参与中的社会经济不平等可能危及将调查结果外推到总人口的能力。基于汇总数据的早期研究表明，在比利时，健康状况不佳的受教育程度较低的人不太可能参与健康调查。本文研究了健康调查中社会经济地位和家庭无应答之间的关联。
比利时 2001 年健康调查与 2001 年人口普查之间的链接使我们能够评估社会经济地位对参与的影响。
我们观察到社会经济地位是健康调查参与的决定因素：社会经济状况较低的家庭参与率显著较低。
参与中的社会经济不平等可能会对健康调查结果产生偏差。需要考虑针对提高较低社会经济群体参与率的策略。
