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Validation of a theoretically motivated approach to measuring childhood socioeconomic circumstances in the Health and Retirement Study.
- Source :
- PLoS ONE, Vol 12, Iss 10, p e0185898 (2017)
- Publication Year :
- 2017
- Publisher :
- Public Library of Science (PLoS), 2017.
-
Abstract
- Childhood socioeconomic status (cSES) is a powerful predictor of adult health, but its operationalization and measurement varies across studies. Using Health and Retirement Study data (HRS, which is nationally representative of community-residing United States adults aged 50+ years), we specified theoretically-motivated cSES measures, evaluated their reliability and validity, and compared their performance to other cSES indices. HRS respondent data (N = 31,169, interviewed 1992-2010) were used to construct a cSES index reflecting childhood social capital (cSC), childhood financial capital (cFC), and childhood human capital (cHC), using retrospective reports from when the respondent was 0.05 vs. < 0.04) than alternative indices. Our cSES measures use latent variable models to handle item-missingness, thereby increasing the sample size available for analysis compared to complete case approaches (N = 15,345 vs. 8,248). Adopting this type of theoretically motivated operationalization of cSES may strengthen the quality of research on the effects of cSES on health outcomes.
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 19326203
- Volume :
- 12
- Issue :
- 10
- Database :
- Directory of Open Access Journals
- Journal :
- PLoS ONE
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- edsdoj.69a8fb93d6444edbbdbf96161fae6150
- Document Type :
- article
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0185898