Socioeconomic Status and Mortality in the United States: Review of the Literature

Abstract

THE KNOWLEDGE that differences in so¬ cioeconomic status are related to differences in mortality rates has long been of concern to persons seeking to improve levels of health and well-being. Ever

Relationship of mortality to socioeconomic status and some other factors in Sydney in 1971.

“…The literature has been reviewed by Stockwell (1961Stockwell ( , 1963, Benjamin (1965), and Antonovsky (1967). Antonovsky quoted papers by Milne (1815) on class differences and on mortality by Villerme (1840), who analysed life expectancy of persons in different occupations from deaths in Mulhouse between 1823 and 1834.…”

Socioeconomic Analysis of the Alameda County Health Department Jurisdiction

“…[4][5][6][7][8] In the association of socioeconomic status and health status it is felt that the former could be used as a tool for measuring and predicting health status and as an intervening variable when evaluation is performed on programs and services of a health department.…”

Socioeconomic epidemiology: differential determinants in a longitudinal frame work

“…Perhaps most important is the recognition that de creases in mortality can contribute to increases in life expectancy and are associated with a better quality of life (Alexander, 1953;Hartley, 1972;Riser, 1968;Legaré, 1967;Lemer and Anderson, 1963;Linden, 1969;Stockwell, 1961). The Importance of understanding the consequences of mortality change is driven home when one recognizes that there is almost universal support for the further lowering of mortality rates.…”

“…Components of social class have been shown to provide certain subgroups with different kinds of mortality experience; education has been researched by Kitagawa and Hauser (1968), McGirr (1976b), and Upchurch (1962), occupation by Dom (1959), Sauer and Parke (1974), and Tuckman et al (1965), and economic status by Altenderfer (1947), Schwirian and Lagreca (1971), and Yeracaris (1955). Other differen tials studied for the social inequality of mortality include urbanrural residency (Arriga, 1967); Glass, 1964;Wiehl, 1948), marital status (Berkson, 1962;Nam, 1968;Young et al, 1970), sex (Geerken and Gove, 1974;Gove, 1973;Price, 1954), health and medical care and facili ties (McGirr, 1976a;Stockwell, 1961), housing and household charac teristics (Coombs, 1941;Ellis, 1957), race (Howard and Holman, 1970;Sutton, 1971), and ethnicity (Schwirian and Lagreca, 1971). But a host of problems remain in mortality analyses.…”

“…Sound health and the availability and utilization of medical facilities for emergency or durational care are inversely asso ciated to mortality (Dom, 1959;Stockwell, 1961). Where sound health is beyond the reach of certain groups (e.g., lower Income groups) (Sly and Chi, 1972;Schwirlan and Lagreca, 1971) mortality is found to be higher.…”