Impact of socioeconomic status and subjective social class on overall and health-related quality of life.
BACKGROUND
Our objective was to investigate the impact of socioeconomic status and subjective social class on health-related quality of life (HRQOL) vs. overall quality of life (QOL).


METHODS
We performed a longitudinal analysis using data regarding 8250 individuals drawn from the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging (KLoSA). We analyzed differences between HRQOL and QOL in individuals of various socioeconomic strata (high, middle, or low household income and education levels) and subjective social classes (high, middle, or low) at baseline (2009).


RESULTS
Individuals with low household incomes and of low subjective social class had the highest probability of reporting discrepant HRQOL and QOL scores (B: 4.796; P < 0.0001), whereas individuals with high household incomes and high subjective social class had the lowest probability of discrepant HRQOL and QOL scores (B: -3.625; P = 0.000). Similar trends were seen when education was used as a proxy for socioeconomic status.


CONCLUSIONS
In conclusion, both household income/subjective social class and education/subjective social class were found to have an impact on the degree of divergence between QOL and HRQOL. Therefore, in designing interventions, socioeconomic inequalities should be taken into account through the use of multi-dimensional measurement tools.
Department of Public Health, Graduate School, Yonsei University, Seoul, Republic of Korea. kjh0930@yuhs.ac.|Institute of Health Services Research, Yonsei University, Seoul, Republic of Korea. kjh0930@yuhs.ac.
Jae-Hyun
JH
Kim
Institute of Health Services Research, Yonsei University, Seoul, Republic of Korea. ecpark@yuhs.ac.|Department of Preventive Medicine, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea. ecpark@yuhs.ac.
Eun-Cheol
EC
Park
D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011788:Quality of Life; D056910:Republic of Korea; D012923:Social Class; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors