Optimal indicators of socioeconomic status for health research.

OBJECTIVES In this study we examined the relationship between indicators of socioeconomic status (SES) and mortality for a representative sample of individuals. METHODS The sample included 3734 individuals aged 45 and older interviewed in 1984 in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. In the current study, mortality was tracked between 1984 and 1994 and is related to SES indicators of education, occupation, income, and wealth. RESULTS Wealth and recent family income were the indicators that were most strongly associated with subsequent mortality. These associations persisted after we controlled for the other SES indicators and were stronger for women than for men and for non-elderly than for elderly individuals. CONCLUSIONS We found that the economic indicators of SES were usually as strongly associated with mortality as, if not more strongly associated with mortality than, the more conventional indicators of completed schooling and occupation.

• Publication year

  2002

• Venue

  American Journal of Public Health

• Publication date

  2002-07-01

• Fields of study

  Sociology, Medicine, Economics, Psychology

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.2105/AJPH.92.7.1151PMID 12084700PMCID PMC1447206
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

• The Long and Short of Asking Questions about Income, Wealth, and Labor Supply

  2001cited by this paper
• Converging health inequalities in later life--an artifact of mortality selection.

  2000cited by this paper
• Gender and the socioeconomic gradient in mortality.

  1999cited by this paper
• A comparison of the relationships of education and income with mortality: the National Longitudinal Mortality Study.

  1999cited by this paper
• Education and occupational social class: which is the more important indicator of mortality risk?

  1998cited by this paper
• Missed opportunities in monitoring socioeconomic status.

  1997cited by this paper
• Health inequalities in the life course perspective.

  1997cited by this paper
• Socio-economic Position, Gender and Health

  1997cited by this paper
• Income dynamics and adult mortality in the United States, 1972 through 1989.

  1997cited by this paper
• Measuring social class in US public health research: concepts, methodologies, and guidelines.

  1997cited by this paper
• Why do poor people behave poorly? Variation in adult health behaviours and psychosocial characteristics by stages of the socioeconomic lifecourse.

  1997cited by this paper
• Income Dynamics and Adult Mortality in the U.S., 1972-1989

  1997cited by this paper
• Race and health: basic questions, emerging directions.

  1997cited by this paper
• Can we monitor socioeconomic inequalities in health? A survey of U.S. health departments' data collection and reporting practices.

  1997cited by this paper
• Long-term psychosocial work environment and cardiovascular mortality among Swedish men.

  1996cited by this paper
• Race/Ethnicity and Socioeconomic Status: Measurement and Methodological Issues

  1996cited by this paper
• Educational differentials in mortality: United States, 1979-85.

  1996cited by this paper
• Recommendations of the Conference “Measuring Social Inequalities in Health”

  1996cited by this paper
• SES Differentials in Health by Age and Alternative Indicators of SES

  1996cited by this paper
• Differences in mortality by housing tenure and by car access from the OPCS Longitudinal Study.

  1995cited by this paper
• Measuring social inequalities in health. Report on the Conference of the National Institutes of Health.

  1995cited by this paper
• The links between education and health.

  1995cited by this paper
• Poverty and Death in the United States—1973 and 1991

  1995cited by this paper
• Us socioeconomic and racial differences in health: patterns and explanations

  1995cited by this paper
• Social conditions as fundamental causes of disease.

  1995cited by this paper
• Money, Power and Inequality within Marriage

  1994cited by this paper
• The social stratification of aging and health.

  1994cited by this paper
• Poverty and children's nutritional status in the United States.

  1994cited by this paper
• The size of mortality differences associated with educational level in nine industrialized countries.

  1994cited by this paper
• Socioeconomic inequalities in health. No easy solution.

  1993cited by this paper
• Errors in Survey Reports of Earnings, Hours Worked, and Hourly Wages

  1993cited by this paper
• Career earnings and death: a longitudinal analysis of older Canadian men.

  1993cited by this paper
• Racism, sexism, and social class: implications for studies of health, disease, and well-being.

  1993cited by this paper
• The increasing disparity in mortality between socioeconomic groups in the United States, 1960 and 1986.

  1993cited by this paper
• Socioeconomic Status and Psychiatric Disorder among Blacks and Whites

  1992cited by this paper
• Marital status and psychiatric disorders among blacks and whites.

  1992cited by this paper
• Socioeconomic status and health: how education, income, and occupation contribute to risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

  1992cited by this paper
• Health inequalities among British civil servants: the Whitehall II study.

  1991cited by this paper
• Measurement and analysis of mortality : new approaches

  1990cited by this paper
• Occupational careers and mortality of elderly men

  1990cited by this paper
• Age, socioeconomic status, and health.

  1990cited by this paper
• Household Spending, Personal Spending and the Control of Money in Marriage

  1990cited by this paper
• Race or class versus race and class: mortality differentials in the United States.

  1990cited by this paper
• Health and social inequities in Finland and elsewhere.

  1990cited by this paper
• The effect of occupational, marital and parental roles on mortality: the Alameda County Study.

  1989cited by this paper
• Measuring socioeconomic mortality differentials over time

  1989cited by this paper
• National trends in educational differentials in mortality.

  1989cited by this paper
• The measurement of social class in epidemiology.

  1988cited by this paper
• Mortality among the elderly in the Alameda County Study: behavioral and demographic risk factors.

  1987cited by this paper
• A new perspective on the relationships among race, social class, and psychological distress.

  1986cited by this paper
• Social class inequality in mortality from 1921 to 1972 in England and Wales.

  1985cited by this paper
• Returns to education: a further international update and implications

  1985cited by this paper
• Social class mortality differentials: artefact, selection or life circumstances?

  1985cited by this paper
• The Allocation of Money and the Structuring of Inequality within Marriage

  1983cited by this paper
• Differential Mortality in the United States: A Study in Socioeconomic Epidemiology.

  1974cited by this paper

• Refining and validation of Family Socioeconomic Status Scale (FSESS) for health research in Egypt

  2026cites this paper
• Reporting of data on participant ethnicity and socioeconomic status in high impact respiratory journals: a targeted literature review.

  2026cites this paper
• Formal Volunteering Among Economically Marginalized Older Americans: A Scoping Review.

  2026cites this paper
• Spatial variation in socio-economic vulnerability to Influenza-like Infection for the US population.

  2026cites this paper
• The Mediating Role of Intergenerational Stratification in the Long Arm of Childhood Income.

  2025cites this paper
• Temporal and demographic trends in alcohol-related-cirrhosis, alcohol-related hepatitis, and non-alcohol-related cirrhosis hospitalizations from 2012-2023: A population-based study in Alberta, Canada.

  2025cites this paper
• Family wealth and adolescent physical health

  2025cites this paper
• Towards the Development of a Conceptual Framework of the Determinants of Pre-Eclampsia: A Hierarchical Systematic Review of Social Determinants.

  2025cites this paper
• Between‐Person and Within‐Person Effects in the Temporal Relationship Between Depression and Physical Frailty in Perioperative Cardiac Surgery Patients: A Longitudinal Study

  2025cites this paper
• Investigating Multiple Mediators to Mitigate Socioeconomic Differences in Patient‐Reported Outcomes After Stroke: A Nationwide Register‐Based Study

  2025influential citation
• Income, Educational Level, and Depressive Symptoms in a Time of Multiple Crises: Trends Revealed by High-Frequency Mental Health Surveillance in Germany, 2019–2024.

  2025cites this paper
• Wealth as an important (and commonly ignored) dimension of socioeconomic status in epidemiology

  2025cites this paper
• Investigating Nutrition and Supportive Care Needs in Esophageal and Gastric Cancer Survivors: A Cross-Sectional Survey

  2025cites this paper
• Educational inequalities in smoking-attributable mortality in Europe: Understanding trends between 2000 and 2020.

  2025cites this paper
• Material Hardship and Youth Development: A Longitudinal Lens on the Pathways Linking Early Unmet Needs to Adolescent Delinquency and Arrest

  2025cites this paper
• Extracellular vesicle-encapsulated microRNA signatures of cigarette smoking and smoking-related harm.

  2025cites this paper
• Sociodemographic and biological determinants of insulin initiation in type 2 diabetes: a cohort study using routinely collected primary care data

  2025cites this paper
• County Influenza Vaccination Rates and Antibiotic Prescribing Rates in US Nursing Homes

  2025cites this paper
• New online tools to assess children’s implicit social cognition: Replication and generalization of in-person research.

  2025cites this paper
• Wealth gradients in healthy aging: evidence from the 2011 and 2013 waves of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study

  2025cites this paper
• Factors associated with long-term survival of invasive breast cancer patients in Belgium: a population-based cohort study.

  2025cites this paper
• Associations between sleep, obesity, and mental health in adolescents: Understanding sex-specific vulnerabilities.

  2025cites this paper
• A systematic review of income and education reporting in psychedelic clinical trials

  2025cites this paper
• The Contribution of Educational Expansion to Trends in Life Expectancy and Lifespan Variation in England and Wales, Finland, and Italy (Turin).

  2025cites this paper
• Household Income, Neighborhood Poverty, and Epigenetic Age: Differences Between Men and Women

  2025cites this paper
• [Association between socioeconomic status and vision impairment among Chinese elderly].

  2025cites this paper
• Association between socioeconomic status and healthy lifestyle with depressive symptoms in older adults: Evidence from five prospective cohort studies.

  2025cites this paper
• Targeting the “poorest of the poor”: a multi-scale approach

  2024cites this paper
• The RESPCCT Study: Community-led Development of a Person-Centered Instrument to Measure Health Equity in Perinatal Services

  2024cites this paper
• Financial-related discrimination and socioeconomic inequalities in psychological well-being related measures: a longitudinal study

  2024cites this paper
• Association between Neighborhood Household Income and Inpatient Atrial Fibrillation Outcomes.

  2024cites this paper
• Enabling the examination of long-term mortality trends by educational level for England and Wales in a time-consistent and internationally comparable manner

  2024cites this paper
• Individual-level socioeconomic status and cataract-induced visual disability among older adults in China: the overview and urban-rural difference

  2024cites this paper
• The Impact of Unemployment on Health Status: The Case of Turkey

  2024cites this paper
• Psychological reactance, misinformation, and distrust: A mixed methods analysis of COVID-19 vaccine uptake

  2024cites this paper
• Greater attention to socioeconomic status in developmental research can improve the external validity, generalizability, and replicability of developmental science.

  2024cites this paper
• Trends in educational inequalities in smoking-attributable mortality and their impact on changes in general mortality inequalities: evidence from England and Wales, Finland, and Italy (Turin)

  2024cites this paper
• Association of Maternal Air Pollution Exposure and Infant Lung Function Is Modified by Genetic Propensity to Oxidative Stress

  2024cites this paper
• Risk of Severe Early Childhood Caries over Time in Low-Income Preschoolers

  2024cites this paper
• What do we mean when we talk about socioeconomic status? Implications for measurement, mechanisms and interventions from a critical review on adolescent mental health

  2024cites this paper
• Examining socio‐economic disparities among e‐cigarette users and cigarette smokers in three Canadian jurisdictions

  2024cites this paper
• Occupational Status and Health in Early Midlife

  2024cites this paper
• The mediating effect of family support in the relationship between socio-economic status and postpartum depressive symptoms

  2024cites this paper
• Technology factors related to the differences in paper and online reading scores in PIRLS 2016

  2024cites this paper
• Development of posttransplant diabetes mellitus in US recipients of liver transplant is influenced by OPTN region

  2024cites this paper
• Association Between Family Income, Subclinical Myocardial Injury, and Cardiovascular Mortality in the General Population

  2024cites this paper
• Patterns of depression symptoms in relation to stressors and social behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic among older youth and emerging adults in the United States

  2024cites this paper
• A vision for a diverse, inclusive, equitable, and representative developmental science.

  2024cites this paper
• Reducing research participant disparities through use of a co-developed video intervention: A cohort nested pre-post study

  2024cites this paper
• Inequalities in Mortality in the Asia-Pacific: A Cross-National Comparison of Socioeconomic Gradients

  2024cites this paper
• Socioeconomic Differences in Patient Reported Outcome Measures 3 Months After Stroke: A Nationwide Swedish Register-Based Study

  2024cites this paper
• The Impact of Socioeconomic Factors on Long-Term Mortality Associated With Exposure to PM2.5: A Systematic Literature Review and Meta-Analysis

  2024influential citation
• The Factor Structure and Generalizability of the Iranian Socioeconomic Status (SES) Questionnaire Administered in a Nationally Divergent Population

  2024cites this paper
• Education and income disparities associated with online health information seeking behavior: Using an approach of the knowledge-gap theory

  2024cites this paper
• Relationship between Maternal Socioeconomic Factors and Preterm Birth in Latvia

  2024cites this paper
• Association of household net worth with healthcare costs after radical cystectomy using real‐world data

  2024cites this paper
• Predicting low cognitive ability at age 5 years using perinatal data and machine learning

  2024cites this paper
• Understanding the Values, Qualities, and Preferences of Patients in Their Relationships With Obstetrics and Gynecology Providers: Cross-Sectional Survey With a Mixed Methods Approach

  2024cites this paper
• How social and economic conditions impact socioeconomic mobility. The case of Spain

  2024cites this paper
• Socioeconomic and Racial Disparities in Vision Care Access and Impairment Among U.S. Children.

  2023cites this paper
• Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on screen time and sleep in early adolescents.

  2023cites this paper
• Association of Income with Post-Stroke Cognition and the Underlying Neuroanatomical Mechanism

  2023cites this paper
• The impact of race/ethnicity and county-level upward economic mobility on textbook outcomes in hepatopancreatic surgery.

  2023cites this paper
• Birth Cohort‒Specific Smoking Patterns by Family Income in the U.S.

  2023cites this paper
• Income inequalities in exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals among pregnant women in Taiwan

  2023cites this paper
• Financial Hardship and Age-Related Decrements in Kidney Function Among Black and White Adults in the Midlife in the United States Study

  2023cites this paper
• Race and ethnicity influences outcomes of adult burn patients.

  2023cites this paper
• Neighbourhood greenspaces and mental wellbeing among university students in England during the COVID-19 pandemic: an online survey under lockdown

  2023cites this paper
• The impact of estimation methods for alcohol-attributable mortality on long-term trends for the general population and by educational level in Finland and Italy (Turin)

  2023cites this paper
• Desigualdades socioeconómicas y étnico-raciales en la mortalidad de un hijo durante su niñez en México. ¿Qué tanto importa el color de la piel?

  2023cites this paper
• Socioeconomic status and health-related quality of life after stroke: a systematic review and meta-analysis

  2023cites this paper
• Family income as a moderator of relations between sleep and physical health during adolescence.

  2023cites this paper
• Parents, but not their children, demonstrate greater delay discounting with resource scarcity

  2023cites this paper
• Timing and level of educational attainment and late‐life cognition in the KHANDLE study

  2023cites this paper
• Association between educational level and self-reported musculoskeletal pain and physical functioning in Danes 60–70 years old from 2010 to 2017: a longitudinal analysis of trends over time on data from the Danish Health and Morbidity Survey

  2023cites this paper
• Type of School as a Socioeconomic Indicator and its Impact on the Nutritional Status, School Performance, Self-Esteem of Basic School Students (10-12 Years Old) in Khartoum Locality, 2014

  2023cites this paper
• A growing divide: Trends in social inequalities in healthy longevity in Australia, 2001–20

  2023cites this paper
• Age at first birth and women's midlife health: Cohort and race differences across the 20th century.

  2023cites this paper
• The association between material-psychological-behavioral framework of financial hardship and markers of inflammation: a cross-sectional study of the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) Refresher cohort

  2023cites this paper
• The long term relationship between childhood Medicaid expansions and severe chronic conditions in adulthood

  2023cites this paper
• Mediation Analyses of the Mechanisms by Which Socioeconomic Status, Comorbidity, Stroke Severity, and Acute Care Influence Stroke Outcome

  2023cites this paper
• A test of the predictive validity of relative versus absolute income for self-reported health and well-being in the United States

  2023cites this paper
• Associations of neighborhood-level socioeconomic status, accessibility, and quality of green spaces in Finnish urban regions

  2023cites this paper
• Reversals in past long-term trends in educational inequalities in life expectancy for selected European countries

  2023cites this paper
• The contribution of work and health-related lifestyle to educational inequalities in physical health among older workers in Germany. A causal mediation analysis with data from the lidA cohort study

  2023cites this paper
• Feeling poor or feeling poorer: comparing subjective measures of income in predicting health and well-being (Sentirse pobre o más pobre: comparación de medidas subjetivas del nivel de ingresos en la predicción de la salud y el bienestar)

  2023cites this paper
• Long-term cardiovascular outcomes among immigrants and non-immigrants in cardiac resynchronization therapy: a nationwide study

  2023cites this paper
• Are credit scores and financial well-being associated with physical health?

  2023cites this paper
• Association of maternal air pollution exposure and infant lung function is modified by genetic propensity to oxidative stress.

  2023cites this paper
• Global prevalence of basic life support training: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

  2023cites this paper
• Greenness and equity: Complex connections between intra-neighborhood contexts and residential tree planting implementation

  2023cites this paper
• The interaction of socioeconomic stress and race on telomere length in children: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

  2023cites this paper
• Inequities in routine preventive care utilization among persons with overweight/obesity in the United States: An analysis of nativity, racial and ethnic identity, and socioeconomic status

  2023cites this paper
• Identifying the Impact of Transmigration Policy on Local Community: A Case Study of Sigulai Village, Simeulue Regency, Indonesia

  2023cites this paper
• A global comparative study of wealth-pain gradients: Investigating individual- and country-level associations

  2023cites this paper
• Social determinants as predictors of resection and long-term mortality in Black patients with non-small cell lung cancer.

  2023cites this paper
• Neighborhood Influences on Child Injury Risk

  2023cites this paper
• The association between subjective cognitive decline and trajectories of objective cognitive decline: Do social relationships matter?

  2023cites this paper
• The relationship between political efficacy and self-rated health: An analysis of Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Cuban subgroups compared to non-Latinx whites in the United States

  2023cites this paper
• Gestational Diabetes and Poor Healthcare Affordability Among Pregnant Women: A Double Whammy!

  2023cites this paper