Household income and health status in children and adolescents in Britain.
BACKGROUND
Mortality, health, and well-being across the lifespan are associated with socioeconomic position (typically operationalised as occupational status). There is some evidence that adolescence represents a period of 'relative equalisation' of health inequalities. Our aim was to examine the association between inequalities in household income and health in childhood and adolescence.


METHODS
Cross-sectional survey using multistage stratified random sample of households in Britain. Information was collected on 10438 children aged 5-15 years.


RESULTS
Low levels of equivalised household income was associated with poorer health for 13 out of the 22 indicators examined (odds ratio P < 0.05 for > or =1 income quintile). Multivariate analyses controlling for child characteristics, parental socioeconomic status and household composition indicated that low levels of equivalised household income increased the odds of poor health for 9 out of the 22 indicators examined. There was little evidence of any systematic differences in the extent of health inequalities across age groups (5-10 and 11-15 years).


CONCLUSIONS
Household income is related to a range of health outcomes for children and adolescents, even when other indicators of socioeconomic status are taken into account. We found little evidence that adolescence represents a period of relative equalisation of health inequalities.
Emerson
Eric
E
Institute for Health Research, Lancaster University, UK. eric.emerson@lancaster.ac.uk
Graham
Hilary
H
Hatton
Chris
C
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D007182:Income; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D015995:Prevalence; D012923:Social Class; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D006113:United Kingdom / Q000453:epidemiology