Carstairs V, Morris R
Department of Community Medicine, University of Edinburgh, Medical School.
Health Bull (Edinb). 1990 Jul;48(4):162-75.
A measure of deprivation has been devised using data from the 1981 Census about area characteristics which may be considered to reflect material deprivation, and a score is calculated for each postcode sector in Scotland. The routine data sources provide information for a range of health measures which are shown to be strongly linked to levels of deprivation, with specific causes--respiratory conditions, cancer of the lung and cancer of the cervix--exhibiting very considerable differentials in respect of both mortality and cancer morbidity. Nevertheless not all causes exhibit this positive association. This area-based measure provides a valuable tool for the analysis of health data in relation to socio-economic circumstances which overcomes many of the limitations which arise in the use of the more traditional measure of social class. Like social class however it depends on data from the census which are available only at ten-yearly intervals. Other existing data sources are suggested which could possibly provide relevant information on area characteristics and populations for inter-censal years.
利用1981年人口普查中有关地区特征的数据设计了一种贫困衡量方法，这些特征可被视为反映物质贫困情况，并且为苏格兰的每个邮政编码区计算了一个分数。常规数据源提供了一系列健康指标的信息，这些指标显示与贫困水平密切相关，特定病因——呼吸系统疾病、肺癌和宫颈癌——在死亡率和癌症发病率方面都表现出非常显著的差异。然而，并非所有病因都呈现这种正相关关系。这种基于地区的衡量方法为分析与社会经济环境相关的健康数据提供了一个有价值的工具，它克服了使用更传统的社会阶层衡量方法时出现的许多局限性。然而，与社会阶层一样，它依赖于仅每十年才有一次的人口普查数据。文中还提出了其他现有的数据源，它们可能会为两次人口普查期间的地区特征和人口提供相关信息。
