Concordance of sibling's recall of measures of childhood socioeconomic position

Michael M Ward

doi:10.1186/1471-2288-11-147

Abstract

BackgroundStudies of socioeconomic determinants of health often rely on recalled information on childhood socioeconomic position, despite limited evidence of the validity of this information. This study examined concordance between siblings of recalled measures of childhood socioeconomic position.MethodsThis cross-sectional study examined reports by 1280 adult sibling pairs in the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States of seven measures of childhood socioeconomic position: father's occupation (in 9 categories), father having a professional occupation, father being a supervisor at work, father's education level, mother's education level, receipt of welfare payments, and subjective appraisal of being better or worse off financially than others.ResultsConcordance was high for father's professional occupation (0.97; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.96, 0.98), father's occupation in 9 categories (0.76; 95% CI 0.73, 0.80), and receipt of welfare payments (0.95; 95% CI 0.93, 0.97). Concordance was lower for father's and mother's education level, and lowest for subjective appraisal of socioeconomic position (0.60; 95% CI 0.57, 0.64). Concordance of parental education was lower for sibling pairs with high school educations or less.ConclusionConcordance of recalled measures of childhood socioeconomic position by siblings is generally but not uniformly high.

Highlights

Studies of socioeconomic determinants of health often rely on recalled information on childhood socioeconomic position, despite limited evidence of the validity of this information
Father’s occupation and father’s education level have been the measures most often used to assess childhood socioeconomic position, other measures such as mother’s education level, indicators of poverty or financial insecurity, and subjective appraisal of relative wealth have been included in recent surveys [3,9,10]
Source of data Data were from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS), a survey of the health, psychological well-being, and social and economic circumstances of adults in mid-life in the United States (U.S.), conducted in 1995-1996 [11]

Summary

Introduction

Studies of socioeconomic determinants of health often rely on recalled information on childhood socioeconomic position, despite limited evidence of the validity of this information. This study examined concordance between siblings of recalled measures of childhood socioeconomic position. Few studies have assessed the validity of recall of measures of childhood socioeconomic position. A larger British study reported that childhood social class, based on the father’s occupation, was accurately recalled by 54% of adults when compared to prospectively collected data [7]. Krieger et al reported highly concordant responses to questions on father’s educational attainment and work role by 352 adult twin pairs, indicating that these measures were accurately recalled [8]. The goal of this study was to assess the validity of recall by adults of several different measures of childhood socioeconomic position by comparing responses between sibling pairs in a large national sample. We examined if concordance varied with characteristics of the respondents

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion