Different Levels Of Socioeconomic Status Research Articles

Attitudes Towards Replacement of Teeth Among Patients at the Institute of Dental Sciences, Belgaum, India

The purpose of this study was to assess the attitude towards replacement of teeth among patients who reported to the department of prosthodontics in the Institute of Dental Sciences, Belgaum, which is located in the northwestern part of the state of Karnataka in the southern region of India. A fourteen-item, closed-ended questionnaire was completed by 365 volunteer patients who were then examined by a clinician and existing and missing teeth were charted. All the patients who reported to a dental clinic in a period of two months with at least one missing tooth were included in the study. Collected data were statistically analyzed using chi-square test at a significance level of p<0.05. The age of the subjects ranged from sixteen to eighty-four years (mean age 51.06 +/-16.47 years). Among these 365 patients, 228 were in a waiting period for soft tissue healing after extraction of tooth/teeth; 19.7 percent of the patients gave financial constraints as the reason for not replacing teeth; 7.1 percent reported that they lacked the time to have teeth replaced; 6.9 percent had low felt needs; and 3.8 percent indicated they did not know that teeth could be replaced. Subjects with different levels of socioeconomic status reported different reasons for not replacing the teeth and these differences were statistically significant (chi(2)=61.16, P<0.001). Knowledge about the equivalence of artificial teeth with natural teeth (chi(2)=23.01, P<0.05) and problems with artificial teeth (chi(2)=17.25, P<0.05) were also significantly different among subjects from different socioeconomic categories. The findings indicate that awareness needs to be increased regarding the other functions of teeth like esthetics and phonetics because many subjects in this study were only aware of the function of mastication performed by teeth, especially among individuals in the lower socioeconomic group. Attitudes of patients should be taken into consideration to improve patient compliance with and acceptance of prostheses.

Age-related Patterns of Upper Arm Muscle and Fat Area in Turkish Children and Assessment of Nutritional Status

Anthropometric estimation of midarm muscularity and fatness was employed as a general index of nutritional status in developing countries. The present study attempts to evaluate the sex- and age-related pattern of regional muscle and fat area characteristics in Turkish children. A cross-sectional study was carried out on 1,068 10- to 14-year-old children (583 boys and 485 girls) from junior high schools in Ankara, the capital city of Turkey. According to general anthropometric protocols, weight, height, triceps skinfold thickness, and midarm circumference measurements were taken and socioeconomic data were collected. Arm muscle area (AMA) and arm fat area (AFA) were calculated and centile curves were evaluated using least median squares method. Results showed significant sexual dimorphism in muscle and fat patterning. AFA was found to be higher among girls and AMA among boys. The present findings suggest that the different levels of socioeconomic status (SES) appeared to be more prevalent on muscularity among boys (p < 0.05) and adiposity among girls (p < 0.001).

Childhood Leukemia and Socioeconomic Status in Canada

Leukemia is one of the most common potentially fatal illnesses in children, and its causes are not well understood. Although socioeconomic status (SES) has been related to leukemia in some studies, this apparent association may be attributable to ascertainment or participation bias. This study was undertaken to determine whether there is a difference in incidence of childhood leukemia for different levels of SES, as measured by neighborhood income, in an unselected population case group. All cases of childhood leukemia diagnosed in the years 1985-2001 were identified from population-based cancer registries in Canada. Postal codes for the place of residence at diagnosis were used to ascertain the census neighborhoods for cases. We constructed neighborhood-based income quintiles from census population data, and stratified the population at risk by sex and 5-year age groupings. Age-standardized incidence rates and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated. We used Poisson regression to compare incidence rate ratios (RRs) across income quintiles. A slightly lower relative risk of childhood leukemia was observed in the poorest quintile compared with the richest (RR = 0.87; 95% CI = 0.80-0.95). The lower risk in the poorest quintile was restricted to acute lymphoid leukemia (0.86; 0.78-0.95) and was strengthened slightly by restriction to urban areas (0.83; 0.74-0.93). This analysis suggests that high SES is a true risk factor for childhood leukemia and that inconsistent results from other studies may be related to differences in case ascertainment or study participation.

Socioeconomic Differences in Health: How Much Do Health Behaviors and Health Insurance Coverage Account For?

As evidence accumulates that both unhealthy behaviors and inadequate access to health care are responsible in part for poor health, there is a tendency to attribute the differences in health status between the poor and the affluent to the higher prevalence of unhealthy behaviors and inadequate access to health care among people of low socioeconomic status (SES). The purpose of this study is to determine quantitatively how much health behaviors and health insurance coverage account for the SES disparity in health. The study employed secondary analysis of data collected through the Kentucky Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System for 2000. After adjusting for health behaviors and health insurance coverage, the differences in health among different levels of SES (measured by education and income) remained strong and significant. Health behaviors and health insurance coverage accounted for 10-16% of the socioeconomic differences in health.

Family Structure, Socioeconomic Status, and Access to Health Care for Children

To test the hypothesis that among children of lower socioeconomic status (SES), children of single mothers would have relatively worse access to care than children in two-parent families, but there would be no access difference by family structure among children in higher SES families. The National Health Interview Surveys of 1993-95, including 63,054 children. Logistic regression was used to examine the relationship between the child's family structure (single-mother or two-parent family) and three measures of health care access and utilization: having no physician visits in the past year, having no usual source of health care, and having unmet health care needs. To examine how these relationships varied at different levels of SES, the models were stratified on maternal education level as the SES variable. The stratified models adjusted for maternal employment, child's health status, race and ethnicity, and child's age. Models were fit to examine the additional effects of health insurance coverage on the relationships between family structure, access to care, and SES. Children of single mothers, compared with children living with two parents, were as likely to have had no physician visit in the past year; were slightly more likely to have no usual source of health care; and were more likely to have an unmet health care need. These relationships differed by mother's education. As expected, children of single mothers had similar access to care as children in two-parent families at high levels of maternal education, for the access measures of no physician visits in the past year and no usual source of care. However, at low levels of maternal education, children of single mothers appeared to have better access to care than children in two-parent families. Once health insurance was added to adjusted models, there was no significant socioeconomic variation in the relationships between family structure and physician visits or usual source of care, and there were no significant disparities by family structure at the highest levels of maternal education. There were no family structure differences in unmet needs at low maternal education, whereas children of single mothers had more unmet needs at high levels of maternal education, even after adjustment for insurance coverage. At high levels of maternal education, family structure did not influence physician visits or having a usual source of care, as expected. However, at low levels of maternal education, single mothers appeared to be better at accessing care for their children. Health insurance coverage explained some of the access differences by family structure. Medicaid is important for children of single mothers, but children in two-parent families whose mothers are less educated do not always have access to that resource. Public health insurance coverage is critical to ensure adequate health care access and utilization among children of less educated mothers, regardless of family structure.

Inequality and Service Access

Health care in the United States is of crucial concern to citizens and government officials as well as academicians. This study reviews the literature concerning stratification and inequality. The delivery of medical services is investigated as a component of social inequality as well as one component of models of change in inequality. The data used in this analysis were collected in four upstate New York counties. Interviews were done to obtain information concerning household use of various medical specialties. Socioeconomic data were also collected for the households in the sample. The inequality of medical service delivery was investigated by comparing the distribution of medical service utilization at different levels of socioeconomic status. The degree of inequality of medical service utilization is considered a function of how strongly related utilization is to various measures of socioeconomic status. Multiple regression revealed that education of head of house, family income, level of living, fam...

Intelligence, Social Environment, and Academic Achievement

The study examined relations between intelligence and academic achievement scores at different levels of socio-economic status and refined family environment measures for English children from three different age cohorts. Data were collected as part of a national survey of 11-, 12-, and 15-year-old schoolchildren. Regression surfaces were constructed from models which examined possible linear, interaction, and curvilinear relations between the variables. The Jackknife technique was used to adjust the significance levels in the investigation. At each environment level, increments in intelligence test scores are associated with increases in academic achievement, while there are differential gender relations between the measures of family environment and achievement at different levels of intellectual ability.

The Socio-Economic Status and Personality of Negro Adolescent Girls

This study was concerned with the attempt to discover the relationship between the social and economic status of Negro adolescent girls and certain personality traits which are observable in the teacher-child relationship. The adolescent period was chosen because psychologists believe that wide variations in personality reactions occur during this period. Accordingly, variations in personality due to any specific factors would be more exaggerated and thus more evident during adolescence. The study was conducted in four public schools of the near South side of Chicago, Illinois. Schools were chosen, the populations of which were thought to represent different levels of socio-economic status. In order to eliminate any sex differences, the study was limited to girls, ranging in age from twelve to sixteen years. Thus race, sex, and age were held constant. It was then possible to discover whether school girls in the neighborhoods could be expected to show better personality adjustments to the school situation than those from neighborhoods less favorable.