title: A method of assigning socio-economic status classification to British Armed Forces personnel.
abstract: The objective of this paper was to develop and evaluate a socio-economic status classification method for British Armed Forces personnel. Two study groups comprising of civilian and Armed Forces families were identified from livebirths delivered between 1 January-30 June 1996 within the Northallerton Health district which includes Catterick Garrison and RAF Leeming. The participants were the parents of babies delivered at a District General Hospital, comprising of 436 civilian and 162 Armed Forces families. A new classification method was successfully used to assign Registrar General's social classification to Armed Forces personnel. Comparison of the two study groups showed a significant difference in social class distribution (p = 0.0001).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study has devised a new method for classifying occupations within the Armed Forces to categories of social class thus permitting comparison with Registrar General's classification.
authors.affiliation: Department of Paediatrics and Child Health, Friarage Hospital, Northallerton, North Yorks.
authors.forename: S Y
authors.initials: SY
authors.lastname: Yoong
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Miles
authors.forename: P A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: McKinney
authors.forename: I J
authors.initials: IJ
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.forename: N J
authors.initials: NJ
authors.lastname: Spencer
mesh_terms: D005220:Fathers / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D007318:Inservice Training; D007587:Job Description; D008889:Military Personnel / Q000145:classification* / Q000193:education / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D009790:Occupations / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012042:Registries; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D006113:United Kingdom