Department of Psychology and Human Development, Vanderbilt University.
J Pers Soc Psychol. 2019 Jun;116(6):1030-1047. doi: 10.1037/pspp0000226. Epub 2018 Nov 8.
The consistent relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and health has been widely covered in the media and scientific journals, which typically argue that physical-health inequalities are caused by material disadvantage directly or indirectly (e.g., chronic environmental-stress, health care resources, etc.). Such explanations do not explain the finely stratified health differences across the entire range of SES. Recent theories have helped address such limitations, but implicate multiple different explanatory pathways. For example, differential epidemiology articles have argued that individual differences are the "fundamental cause" of the gradient (Gottfredson, 2004). Alternatively, variants of allostatic load theory (McEwen & Stellar, 1993), such as the Risky Families model (Repetti, Taylor, & Seeman, 2002) implicate the early home-environment. These theory-driven pathways align with interpretations associated with biometrical models; yet, little research has applied biometrical modeling to understanding the sources of the gradient. Our study presents several innovations and new research findings. First, we use kinship information from a large national family dataset, the NLSY79, whose respondents are approximately representative of United States adolescents in 1979. Second, we present the first biometrical analysis of the relationships between SES and health that uses an overall SES measure. Third, we separate physical and mental health, using excellent measurement of each construct. Fourth, we use a bivariate biometrical model to study overlap between health and SES. Results suggest divergent findings for physical and mental health. Biometrical models indicate a primarily genetic etiology for the link between SES and physical health, and a primarily environmental etiology for the link between SES and mental health. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
社会经济地位（SES）与健康之间的一致关系在媒体和科学期刊中得到了广泛报道，这些期刊通常认为，物质劣势直接或间接地导致了身体健康不平等（例如，慢性环境压力、医疗保健资源等）。这些解释并不能解释 SES 整个范围内的健康差异的精细分层。最近的理论有助于解决这些局限性，但涉及到多种不同的解释途径。例如，差异流行病学文章认为，个体差异是梯度的“根本原因”（Gottfredson，2004）。或者，适应负荷理论的变体（McEwen & Stellar，1993），例如风险家庭模型（Repetti、Taylor 和 Seeman，2002），暗示了早期的家庭环境。这些由理论驱动的途径与与生物计量模型相关的解释一致；然而，很少有研究将生物计量建模应用于理解梯度的来源。我们的研究提出了一些创新和新的研究发现。首先，我们使用来自大型全国家庭数据集 NLSY79 的亲属信息，该数据集的受访者大致代表了 1979 年美国青少年。其次，我们提出了使用总体 SES 衡量标准来研究 SES 与健康之间关系的首次生物计量分析。第三，我们分离了身体健康和心理健康，使用了对每个构建体的出色测量。第四，我们使用双变量生物计量模型来研究健康和 SES 之间的重叠。结果表明，身体健康和心理健康的结果存在差异。生物计量模型表明，SES 与身体健康之间的联系主要是遗传原因，SES 与心理健康之间的联系主要是环境原因。（PsycINFO 数据库记录（c）2019 APA，保留所有权利）。
