title: Measuring socioeconomic position in New Zealand.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Measures of socioeconomic position (SEP) are widely used in health research.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To provide future researchers with empirically based guidance about the relative utility of five measures of SEP in predicting health outcomes.
  
  
  METHODS
  Data from 12,488 adults were obtained from the 2006 New Zealand Health Survey. Seven health-related outcome measures with expected variations by SEP are modelled using five measures of SEP: a census-based small-area index of relative socioeconomic deprivation, NZDep2006; a questionnaire-based individual-level index of socioeconomic deprivation, NZiDep; an index of living standards, ELSI; education, measured by highest qualification; and equivalised household income.
  
  
  RESULTS
  After including the individual measure of deprivation, the area-based measure of deprivation adds useful explanatory power, and, separately, the broader spectrum provided by the living standards index adds only a small amount of extra explanatory power. The education and household income variables add little extra explanatory power.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Both NZiDep and ELSI are useful health-outcome predictors. NZiDep is the cheapest data to obtain and less prone to missing data. The area index, NZDep, is a useful addition to the arsenal of individual SEP indicators, and is a reasonable alternative to them where the use of individual measures is impracticable. Education and household income, using commonly used measurement tools, may be of limited use in research if more proximal indicators of SEP are available. NZDep and NZiDep are cost-effective measures of SEP in health research. Other or additional measures may be useful if costs allow and/or for topic-related hypothesis testing.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, Wellington School of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Otago, New Zealand. clare.salmond@xtra.co.nz
authors.forename: Clare
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Salmond
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Crampton
mesh_terms: D054624:Health Status Disparities; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D015233:Models, Statistical; D009520:New Zealand; D016017:Odds Ratio; D011203:Poverty / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012923:Social Class; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires