Assessing the social class of children from parental information to study possible social inequalities in health outcomes.

Abstract

When the subjects are children, the assessment of social class must be made indirectly from parental data. We propose correspondence analysis as a method for combining parental information. Four assessment methods were used: father's occupation, mother's occupation, dominant occupation of both, and both combined by means of a correspondence analysis. The results were used to explore social inequalities in dental health. We used data from a survey performed on school children (12- and 15-16-year olds) in the Comunitat Valenciana (Spain). Dental health was measured through prevalence of caries, number of teeth with caries, number of caries in permanent teeth, decayed, missing, and filled teeth score (DMF-T), decayed, missing, and filled surface score (DMF-S), prevalence of DMF>0, community periodontal index of treatment needs (CPITN) and prevalence of CPITN>0. Correspondence analysis methods reflect the impact of social class on health indicators. They were able to assign a social group to all individuals. The association between social class and oral health was found to be sensitive to the method used. Pooling information from both parents is important. Evidence of social inequalities in oral health may or may not be obtained depending on the method used.