title: Subjective social status, social network and health disparities: empirical evidence from Greece.
abstract: Several studies suggest that socioeconomic status affects (SES) affects self-rated health (SRH), both in Greece and internationally. However, prior research mainly uses objective measures of SES, instead of subjective evaluations of individuals' social status. Based on this, this paper aims to examine (a) the impact of the economic dowturn on SRH in Greece and (b) the relationship between subjective social status (SSS), social network and SRH.
  
  
  
  The descriptive analysis is based on four cross-sectional surveys conducted by the National School of Public Health, Athens, Greece (2002, 2006, 2011, 2015), while the data for the empirical investigation were derived from the 2015 survey (Health + Welfare Survey GR). The empirical strategy is based on an ordinal logistic regression model, aiming to examine how several variables affect SRH. Size of social network and SSS are among the independent variables employed for the empirical analysis RESULTS: According to our findings, average SRH has deteriorated, and the percentage of the population that reports very good/good SRH has also decreased. Moreover, our empirical analysis suggests that age, existence of a chronic disease, size of social network and SSS affect SRH in Greece.
  
  
  
  Our findings are consistent with the existing literature and confirm a social gradient in health. According to our analysis, health disparities can be largely attributed to socioeconomic inequalities. The adverse economic climate has impact on socioeconomic differences which in turn affect health disparities. Based on these, policy initiatives are necessasy in order to mitigate the negative impact on health and the disparities caused by economic dowturn and the occuring socioeconomic inequalities.
authors.affiliation: MSD Greece, 63 Agiou Dimitriou Street, Alimos Athens, 17456, Greece.
authors.forename: Antonios
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Charonis
authors.affiliation: London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London, WC2A 2AE, UK. i.kyriopoulos@lse.ac.uk.|Department of Health Economics, National School of Public Health, 196 Alexandras Avenue, Athens, 11521, Greece. i.kyriopoulos@lse.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Ilias-Ioannis
authors.initials: II
authors.lastname: Kyriopoulos
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Economics, National School of Public Health, 196 Alexandras Avenue, Athens, 11521, Greece.
authors.forename: Manos
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Spanakis
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Economics, National School of Public Health, 196 Alexandras Avenue, Athens, 11521, Greece.
authors.forename: Dimitris
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Zavras
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Economics, National School of Public Health, 196 Alexandras Avenue, Athens, 11521, Greece.
authors.forename: Kostas
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Athanasakis
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Economics, National School of Public Health, 196 Alexandras Avenue, Athens, 11521, Greece.
authors.forename: Elpida
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Pavi
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Economics, National School of Public Health, 196 Alexandras Avenue, Athens, 11521, Greece.
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kyriopoulos
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002908:Chronic Disease; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D059026:Diagnostic Self Evaluation; D057172:Economic Recession; D005260:Female; D006115:Greece; D054624:Health Status Disparities; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012923:Social Class; D012944:Social Support; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Greece; Ordinal logistic regression; Self-rated health; Social network; Socioeconomic status; Subjective social status