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Subjective Social Status and Maternal Health in a Low Income Urban Population

Abstract  

Appropriate measurement of socioeconomic status (SES) in health research can be problematic. Conventional SES measures based
on ‘objective’ indicators such as income, education, or occupation may have questionable validity in certain populations.
The objective of this investigation was to determine if a relatively new measurement of SES, subjective social status (SSS),
was more consistently and strongly associated with multiple health outcomes for low income mothers. Data available from a
large scale community-based study examining maternal and infant health for a low income urban population were used to examine
relationships between SSS and a wide range of postpartum physical and emotional health outcomes. Crosstabulations and multivariate
analyses focused on the breadth and depth of these relationships; in addition, the relative strength of the relationships
between SSS and the health outcomes was compared to that of conventional measures of SES, including both income and education.
SSS was significantly related to all physical and emotional health outcomes examined. The overall pattern of findings indicated
that these relationships were independent of, as well as more consistent and stronger than, those between conventional measures
of SES and postpartum health outcomes. SSS represents an important dimension of the relationship between SES and postpartum
physical and emotional health. In low income populations the failure to account for this dimension likely underestimates the
influence of SES on postpartum health. This has important implications for the interpretation of findings in empirical studies
which seek to control for the effects of SES on maternal health outcomes.

  • Content Type Journal Article
  • Pages 1-10
  • DOI 10.1007/s10995-011-0791-z
  • Authors
    • Erika Fitzpatrick Dennis, Division of Neonatology, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA
    • David A. Webb, Division of Adolescent Medicine, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA
    • Scott A. Lorch, Division of Neonatology, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA
    • Leny Mathew, Division of Adolescent Medicine, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA
    • Joan R. Bloch, College of Nursing and Health Professions and School of Public Health, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, USA
    • Jennifer F. Culhane, Department of Pediatrics, University of Pennsylvania’s School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA, USA
    • Journal Maternal and Child Health Journal
    • Online ISSN 1573-6628
    • Print ISSN 1092-7875
Posted in: Journal Article Abstracts on 04/17/2011 | Link to this post on IFP |
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