Socioeconomic status and health in childhood: a comment on Chen, Martin and Matthews, "Socioeconomic status and health: do gradients differ within childhood and adolescence?" (62:9, 2006, 2161-2170)

Abstract

Understanding whether the gradient in children's health becomes steeper with age is an important first step in uncovering the mechanisms that connect economic and health status, and in recommending sensible interventions to protect children's health. To that end, this paper examines why two sets of authors, Chen et al. [Socioeconomic status and health: Do gradients differ within childhood and adolescence? Social Science & Medicine, 62, 2161-2170.] and Case et al. [Economic status and health in childhood: The origins of the gradient. American Economic Review, 92, 1308-1334.], using data from the same source, reach markedly different conclusions about income-health gradients in childhood. We find that differences can be explained primarily by the inclusion (exclusion) of a small number of young adults who live independently.

Figure 1. Age patterns in the fair/poor health gradient, NHIS 1986–1995

Note: Each point represents the OR on log income from logistic regressions estimated separately for each year of age. The dependent variable equals 1 if the child is in fair/poor health, 0 otherwise. Odds ratios are adjusted for race, sex, and survey year. All specifications are weighted using sampling weights.