title: Better health reports when the grass is greener on your side of the fence?: a cross-sectional study in older persons.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To study whether the luxury goods make older people feel in better health and whether this association is similar in higher and lower social classes.
  
  
  METHODS
  SMILE consists of a Dutch general population consisting of 2.637 men and women aged 60 years and older in 2007. The SF-36 was used to measure health-related functioning.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In the lower social class, having many luxury goods was related to feeling in better physical (OR 2.06, 95% CI 1.39-3.07) and mental health (OR 1.79, 95% CI 1.21-2.64), but not in the higher social class.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  There might be a health benefit of keeping up appearances, snobbism, and "conspicuous consumption" in older people from lower social classes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Social Medicine, CAPHRI School for Public Health and Primary Care, Maastricht University, The Netherlands. hans.bosma@socmed.unimaas.nl
authors.forename: Hans
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Bosma
authors.forename: Daniëlle
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Groffen
authors.forename: Marjan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: van den Akker
authors.forename: Gertrudis I J M
authors.initials: GI
authors.lastname: Kempen
authors.forename: Jacques Th M
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: van Eijk
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008603:Mental Health; D008875:Middle Aged; D057566:Self Report; D012923:Social Class; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors