Abstract
BackgroundSince few cohorts encompass the whole life-course, many studies that measure socio-economic position (SEP) across the life-course rely on participant recall of SEP measures from cross-sectional postal or interview surveys. It is also particularly important that SEP measures should be appropriate for the age of the population studied, as the level of missing data has been shown to increase in older people. The aim of this study was to investigate the accuracy of recall of two SEP measures in older adults, age left school and longest job, by examining their validity in a general population postal survey in North Staffordshire, UK.MethodsSets of questions on education and longest job were included in a questionnaire at different stages of the study. All patients aged 50+ registered with three general practices were sent a baseline Health Questionnaire. 6 years later, 3410 responders were mailed a follow-up Health Questionnaire; a sub-sample of these participants took part in independent qualitative interviews. Validity was assessed by: percentage completion; internal percentage agreement within each set of questions; percentage agreement of qualitative and quantitative data for age left school and longest job; comparing recall of age left school with historical change in legal school leaving age; comparing frequency of pottery job titles with those in 1981 Census data for Stoke-on-Trent.ResultsThe adjusted response to different stages of the study was 71–85%. Completion of questions was 83–98%. Internal agreement was 84–97% (education) and 95–100% (longest job). Comparison of survey and interview data showed 86% agreement (± 1 year) for age left school and 91% agreement for longest job. The change in age left school data concurred with the historical shift in legal school leaving age. 11% of job titles were pottery in NorStOP data and 15% in Stoke-on-Trent Census data.ConclusionsThe results from this study provide evidence for the accuracy of recall of two simple measures of SEP (age left school and longest job) in a postal survey of older adults. Consistency with evidence from external datasets indicated the potential validity of these measures for studying life-course SEP in population surveys.
Highlights
Since few cohorts encompass the whole life-course, many studies that measure socio-economic position (SEP) across the life-course rely on participant recall of SEP measures from cross-sectional postal or interview surveys
A previous study that compared the accuracy of recall of social circumstances after 50 years between detailed life grid interview data and archive data concluded that “the extent to which these results depend upon life grid interviewing methods, and whether comparable results could be obtained by questionnaire, remains to be examined” [20]; in the authors’ experience, use of a questionnaire would result in the “loss of accuracy, detail and duration of lapsed time” [20]
The aim of this study was to investigate the accuracy of recall of two SEP measures in older adults, age left school and job done for most of working life, by examining their validity in a general population postal survey
Summary
Since few cohorts encompass the whole life-course, many studies that measure socio-economic position (SEP) across the life-course rely on participant recall of SEP measures from cross-sectional postal or interview surveys. In the ideal world, life-course studies measure SEP in real time, such as prospective or birth cohort studies, because they are less reliant on an individual’s recall. Such studies are, by their nature, expensive and take many years to complete; there are relatively few cohorts that encompass measures of SEP across the whole life-course, such as the 1946, 1958 and 1970 UK birth cohort studies [10,11,12]. A reduction in the accuracy of childhood SEP measures recalled in adulthood would tend to underestimate the true associations between SEP and health outcomes [5,21]
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