Is subjective social status a unique correlate of physical health? A meta-analysis.

Abstract

Objective Both social stratification (e.g., social rank) as well as economic resources (e.g., income) are thought to contribute to socioeconomic health disparities. It has been proposed that subjective socioeconomic status (an individual’s perception of his or her hierarchical rank) provides increased predictive utility for physical health over and above more traditional, well-researched socioeconomic constructs such as education, occupation, and income. Method PsychINFO and PubMed databases were systematically searched for studies examining the association of subjective SES and physical health adjusting for at least one measure of objective SES. The final sample included thirty-one studies and ninety-nine unique effects. Meta-analyses were performed to: a) estimate the overlap among subjective and objective indicators of socioeconomic status (SES) and b) estimate the cumulative association of subjective SES with physical health adjusting for objective SES. Potential moderators such as race and type of health indicator assessed (global self-reports vs. more specific and biologically-based indicators) were also examined. Results Across samples, subjective SES shows moderate overlap with objective indicators of SES, but associations are much stronger in Whites than Blacks. Subjective SES evidenced a unique cumulative association with physical health in adults, above and beyond traditional objective indicators of SES (Z=.07, SE=.01, p<.05). This association was stronger for self-rated health than for biologically-based and symptom-specific measures of health. Almost all available data were cross-sectional and do not allow for strong causal inference. Conclusions Subjective SES may provide unique information relevant to understanding disparities in health, especially self-rated health.

Neurostructural correlates of optimism: Gray matter density in the putamen predicts dispositional optimism in late adolescence

“…The Chinese version of this measure has been indicated to be reliable and valid (Kong et al, ; Wang et al, ). Previous studies have shown a close association between subjective SES and physical and psychological health (Adler et al, ; Cundiff & Matthews, ).…”

Development and initial validation of the Perceived Scarcity Scale

“…The traditional indicators used in most of the literature fail to fully capture the relationship between SES, stress, and health outcomes (Cundiff & Matthews, 2017;Saegert et al, 2007;U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2014).…”

Professional collaboration in searching the evidence for an ill‐defined concept

“…Recent research has considered the notion of subjective socio‐economic status – a personal sense of their place in society and also referred to as socio‐economic position or subjective social status – as being a more robust measure of socio‐economic status. Significantly, an established evidence base and recent meta‐analysis now support that this may be a more robust measure than crude objective measures of socio‐economic status by measuring its association with health (Cundiff & Matthews, ). Nevertheless, what we know about subjective socio‐economic status and health is largely based upon empirical studies concerning the general population and therefore this scoping review set out to address our research question concerning its relationship with health in adults with intellectual disabilities.…”