Institut National de Santé Publique, d'Épidémiologie Clinique Et de Toxicologie-Liban (INSPECT-LB), Beirut, Lebanon.
School of Medicine, Lebanese American University, Byblos, Lebanon.
BMC Public Health. 2023 Aug 24;23(1):1619. doi: 10.1186/s12889-023-16531-9.
Socioeconomic status (SES) is a critical multifactorial determinant of health and plays a significant role in shaping an individual's health outcomes. While a composite scale has been proposed to measure SES in children, to our knowledge, limited composite scales were developed for adults in different contexts, highlighting the need for a comprehensive and valid SES measure to elucidate the relationship between SES and health in this population.
This study aimed to develop and validate a composite scale that measures the socioeconomic status in Lebanon and assess its correlates in a socioeconomic crisis context.
An online study was carried out between October and November 2022 across all Lebanese regions. Snowball sampling was used to enroll 448 adults living in Lebanon through a questionnaire created on Google Forms and shared by WhatsApp to a first sample from all geographic areas.
The developed composite scale (SES-C) was found to be reliable and valid. It was based on several aspects of socioeconomic status, i.e., participant education level, family head education level, perceived social class, not being in debt, not receiving financial help, crowding index, participant work status, family head work status, monthly household income, and financial well-being. Furthermore, high SES was significantly associated with married status, older age, alcohol consumption, the absence of chronic disease, easy access to healthcare, private insurance coverage, and the number of rooms in the house in the bivariate analysis. In the multivariable analysis, high SES was significantly associated with age (ORa-1.13; p = 0.011) and easy access to healthcare (ORa = 7.81; p = 0.001) and inversely associated with chronic disease (ORa = 0.17; p = 0.002). Similar results with lower magnitude were found for moderate SES.
The study successfully developed and validated a composite scale (SES-C) for measuring the socioeconomic status in Lebanon, taking into account the complexities of the Lebanese context. The scale was found to be reliable and valid, and its results showed significant correlations with various factors such as older age, lower risk of chronic disease, and easy access to healthcare.
社会经济地位（SES）是健康的一个关键多因素决定因素，对个体的健康结果有重要影响。虽然已经提出了一种综合量表来衡量儿童的 SES，但据我们所知，在不同背景下，为成年人开发的综合量表有限，这突出表明需要一种全面和有效的 SES 衡量标准来阐明 SES 与这一人群健康之间的关系。
本研究旨在开发和验证一种衡量黎巴嫩社会经济地位的综合量表，并在社会经济危机背景下评估其相关性。
2022 年 10 月至 11 月，在黎巴嫩各地进行了一项在线研究。使用滚雪球抽样，通过 WhatsApp 向来自所有地理区域的第一组样本共享的 Google 表格上的问卷，招募了 448 名居住在黎巴嫩的成年人。
所开发的综合量表（SES-C）被证明是可靠和有效的。它基于社会经济地位的几个方面，即参与者的教育水平、家庭负责人的教育水平、感知社会阶层、没有债务、没有接受经济援助、拥挤指数、参与者的工作状况、家庭负责人的工作状况、月家庭收入和财务状况。此外，高 SES 在单变量分析中与已婚状况、年龄较大、饮酒、没有慢性疾病、容易获得医疗保健、私人保险覆盖范围和房屋内的房间数量显著相关。在多变量分析中，高 SES 与年龄（ORa-1.13；p=0.011）和容易获得医疗保健（ORa=7.81；p=0.001）显著相关，与慢性疾病（ORa=0.17；p=0.002）呈负相关。中 SES 也有类似但程度较低的结果。
本研究成功开发并验证了一种用于衡量黎巴嫩社会经济地位的综合量表（SES-C），同时考虑到黎巴嫩背景的复杂性。该量表被证明是可靠和有效的，其结果与年龄较大、慢性疾病风险较低以及容易获得医疗保健等各种因素显著相关。
