Disentangling race and socioeconomic status: a key to understanding health inequalities.
This article addresses one of the most vexing problems facing health disparities researchers, the confounding of race and socioeconomic status. This article does the following: (1) it outlines the magnitude of confounding between race and socioeconomic status; (2) it demonstrates problems caused by this confounding; (3) it examines the degree to which race disparities are a function of socioeconomic status; and (4) it discusses considerations for advancing research on health disparities after accounting for the confounding of race and socioeconomic status.
LaVeist
Thomas A
TA
Center for Health Disparities Solutions, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA. tlaveist@jhsph.edu
D000328:Adult; D015986:Confounding Factors, Epidemiologic; D005006:Ethnicity / Q000145:classification / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006305:Health Status Indicators; D006801:Humans; D007182:Income; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011203:Poverty; D044469:Racial Groups / Q000145:classification / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012107:Research Design; D012923:Social Class; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology