title: Development of a socioeconomic status index to interpret inequalities in oral health in developing countries.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To develop an instrument to measure socioeconomic status (SES) in order to assess SES-related inequalities in oral health in a developing country.
  
  
  METHODS
  In order to develop a SES measurement tool, an expert panel generated a primary item pool from which the items were revised after validity and reliability testing. The final instrument was used in a 1100-sample survey in Tehran. SES was calculated using the weights produced by both principal component analysis (PCA) and expert panel two-stage paired comparisons (TSPC) methods.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The final instrument contained 10 items. Standardised SES scores derived from TSPC and PCA methods were significantly correlated (r = 0.749, P < 0.001). Five-level SES stratification by the two methods revealed a correlation coefficient of 0.701 (P < 0.001) for SES class.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The newly developed SES index was appropriate to be used in exploring oral health inequalities in the studied sample of the Iranian population. When formulating SES, domestic experts' opinions could help the researchers explore and weight sub-construct factors.
authors.affiliation: Community Oral Health Department, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Zahra
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Ghorbani
authors.forename: Arezoo Ebn
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Ahmady
authors.forename: Harry A
authors.initials: HA
authors.lastname: Lando
authors.forename: Shahram
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yazdani
authors.forename: Zohreh
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Amiri
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003729:Dental Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D003753:Dental Health Surveys; D003906:Developing Countries; D054624:Health Status Disparities; D006801:Humans; D007492:Iran; D016015:Logistic Models; D016017:Odds Ratio; D009909:Oral Health; D009910:Oral Hygiene / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D025341:Principal Component Analysis; D012923:Social Class; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric