Abstract
We evaluate how two aspects of socioeconomic status, parental objective and subjective social status, are associated with health-related quality of life in three racial/ethnic groups during pre- to mid-adolescent development, using growth curve modeling. In a longitudinal cohort study, 4,048 Black, Latinx, or White adolescents were assessed in 5th, 7th and 10th grade. Objective social status (OSS) was based on parent-reported highest household educational attainment and total household income, and subjective social status (SSS) was measured with the MacArthur Scale, through which parents indicated their social standing in reference to community and national norms. Adolescents completed the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory to measure their physical and psychosocial health-related quality of life. Based on growth curve modeling of the intercept, adolescents whose parents have higher OSS levels reported better health-related quality of life, whereas parental SSS was not associated with adolescent health-related quality of life in 5th grade. These findings were largely consistent across racial/ethnic groups. Based on growth curve modeling of the developmental slopes (or growth curves), higher objective social status was associated with a slower positive growth of health-related quality of life from 5th to 10th grade, which was largely consistent across racial/ethnic groups. The opposite appeared for parental SSS and physical health-related quality of life, and only for Latinx, where higher parental perceived social status was associated with an acceleration of positive change. Family income and education may influence health-related quality of life at the start of adolescence, but its effect appears to diminish as youth mature. However, in Latinx youth, parents’ perceived social status may continue to influence improvement in their physical health-related quality of life as they mature.
Highlights
-
Socioeconomic status (SES) is known to influence health throughout the lifespan, but the potentially different influence from different components of SES during adolescent development is unknown.
-
Parental income and education level are positively associated with health-related quality of life (HRQOL) for youth in 5th grade.
-
However, the role of parental income and education fades as adolescents mature, generally consistently across racial/ethnic groups.
-
Yet, in Latinx adolescents, parents’ perceived social status may continue to influence improvement in their physical HRQOL as they mature.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adler, N. E., Boyce, T., Chesney, M. A., Cohen, S., Folkman, S., & Kahn, R. L., et al. (1994). Socioeconomic-status and health—the challenge of the gradient. American Psychologist, 49, 15–24. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.49.1.15.
Adler, N. E., Epel, E. S., Castellazzo, G., & Ickovics, J. R. (2000). Relationship of subjective and objective social status with psychological and physiological functioning: preliminary data in healthy white women. Health Psychology, 19, 586–592. https://doi.org/10.1037/0278-6133.19.6.586.
Adler, N., Singh-Manoux, A., Schwartz, J., Stewart, J., Matthews, K., & Marmot, M. G. (2008). Social status and health: A comparison of British civil servants in Whitehall-II with European- and African-Americans in CARDIA. Social Science and Medicine, 66, 1034–1045. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2007.11.031.
Adler, N. E., & Stewart, J. (2010). Health disparities across the lifespan: meaning, methods, and mechanisms. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1186, 5–23. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.05337.x.
Allen, T. D., Choe, E., & Meier, L. Z. (2014). Work-family boundary dynamics. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 1, 99–121. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-031413-091330.
Bateman, L. B. (2014). Socioeconomic status, measurement. The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Health, Illness, Behavior, and Society, 2227–2232. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118410868.wbehibs302.
Bogart, L. M., Elliott, M. N., Kanouse, D. E., Klein, D. J., Davies, S. L., Cuccaro, P. M., Banspach, S. W., Peskin, M. F., & Shuster, M. A. (2014). Association between perceived discrimination and racial/ethnic disparities in problem behaviors among preadolescent youths. American Journal of Public Health, 103, 1074–1081. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2012.301073.
Bollen, K. A., & Curran, P. J. (2005). Latent curve models: a structural equation perspective. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley & Sons, Inc. https://doi.org/10.1002/0471746096.
Bradley, R. H., & Corwyn, R. F. (2002). Socioeconomic status and child development. Annual Review of Psychology, 53, 371–399. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.53.100901.135233.
Bray, J. H., Adams, G. J., Getz, J. G., & Baer, P. E. (2001). Developmental, family, and ethnic in influences on adolescent alcohol usage: a growth curve approach. Journal of Family Psychology, 15, 301–314. https://doi.org/10.1037/0893-3200.15.2.301.
Braveman, P. A., Cubbin, C., Egerter, S., Chideya, S., Marchi, K. S., Metzler, M., & Posner, S. (2005). Socioeconomic status in health research: one size does not fit all. JAMA, 294, 2879–2888. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.294.22.2879.
Byrne, B. M. (2012). A primer of LISREL: Basic applications and programming for confirmatory factor analytic models. New York: Springer-Verlag New York Inc.
Chau, M., Thampi, K., & Wight, V. R. (2010). Basic Facts About Lowincome Children, Children Under Age 18, 2009. New York: National Center for Children in Poverty, Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health. https://doi.org/10.7916/D8JM2JMN.
Chen, E., Martin, A. D., & Matthews, K. A. (2006). Socioeconomic status and health: do gradient differ within childhood and adolescence? Social Science and Medicine, 62, 2161–2170. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2005.08.054.
Chen, E., Matthews, K. A., & Boyce, W. T. (2002). Socioeconomic differences in children’s health: How and why do these relationships change with age? Psychological Bulletin, 128, 295–329. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.128.2.295.
Chen, E., McLean, K. C., & Miller, G. E. (2015). Shift-and-persist strategies: associations with socioeconomic status and the regulation of inflammation among adolescents and their parents. Psychosomatic medicine, 77, 371–382. https://doi.org/10.1097/PSY.0000000000000157.
Chen, E., Miller, G. E., Kobor, M. S., & Cole, S. W. (2011). Maternal warmth buffers the effects of low early-life socioeconomic status on pro-inflammatory signaling in adulthood. Molecular Psychiatry, 16, 729–737. https://doi.org/10.1038/mp.2010.53.
Chen, E., & Miller, G. E. (2012). “Shift-and-Persist” Strategies. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7, 135–158. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691612436694.
Chen, E., & Paterson, L. Q. (2006). Neighborhood, family, and subjective socioeconomic status: How do they relate to adolescent health? Health Psychology, 25, 704–714. https://doi.org/10.1037/0278-6133.25.6.704.
Cohen, G. L., Garcia, J., Apfel, N., & Master, A. (2006). Reducing the racial achievement gap: A social-psychological intervention. Science, 313, 307–1310. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1128317.
Cohen, G. L., Garcia, J., Purdie-Vaughns, V., Apfel, N., & Brzustoski, P. (2009). Recursive processes in self-affirmation: intervening to close the minority achievement gap. Science, 32, 400–403. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1170769.
Cohen, G. L., & Sherman, D. K. (2014). The psychology of change: Self-affirmation and social psychological intervention. Annual Review of Psychology, 65, 333–371. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-010213-115137.
Colby, S. L. & Ortman, J. M. (2015). Projections of the Size and Composition of the U.S. Population: 2014 to 2060. Retrieved from: https://www.census.gov//content/dam/Census/library/publications/2015/demo/p25-1143.pdf.
Conger, R. D., Conger, K. J., & Martin, M. J. (2010). Socioeconomic status, family processes, and individual development. Journal of Marriage and Family, 72, 685–704. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2010.00725.x.
Curran, P. J., Obeidat, K., & Losardo, D. (2010). Twelve frequently asked questions about growth curve modeling. Journal of Cognition and Development, 11, 121–136. https://doi.org/10.1080/15248371003699969.
Daniels, J. A. (1990). Adolescent separation-individuation and family transitions. Adolescence, 25, 105–116.
Diaz, O. V., Guendelman, S., & Kuppermann, M. (2014). Subjective social status and depression symptoms: a prospective study of women with noncancerous pelvic problems. Womens Health Issues, 24, 649–655. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.whi.2014.07.003.
Dixon, S. V., Graber, J. A., & Brooks-Gunn, J. (2008). The roles of respect for parental authority and parenting practices in parent–child conflict among African American, Latino, and European American Families. Journal of Family Psychology, 22, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1037/0893-3200.22.1.1.
Duncan, G. J. & Murnane, R. J. (2011). Whither opportunity? rising inequality, schools, and children’s life chances. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Dupre, M. E. (2007). Educational differences in age-related patterns of disease: Reconsidering the cumulative advantage and age-as-leveler hypotheses. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 48, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1177/002214650704800101.
Evans, G.W. & Wachs, T. D. (2010). Chaos and its influence on children’s development: an ecological perspective. Washington, DC.: American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/12057-000.
Flores, G. (2010). Technical report-racial and ethnic disparities in the health and health care of children. Pediatrics, 132, 979–1020. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2010-0188.
Goodman, E., Adler, N. E., Daniels, S. R., Morrison, J. A., Slap, G. B., & Dolan, L. M. (2003). Impact of objective and subjective social status on obesity in a biracial cohort of adolescents. Obesity Research, 11, 1018–1026. https://doi.org/10.1038/oby.2003.140.
Goodman, E., Adler, N. E., Kawachi, I., Frazier, A. L., Huang, B., & Colditz, G. A. (2001). Adolescents’ perceptions of social status: development and evaluation of a new indicator. Pediatrics, 108, e31–e31. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.108.2.e31.
Goodman, E., Huang, B., Schafer-Kalkhoff, T., & Adler, N. E. (2007). Perceived socioeconomic status: A new Type of identity that influences adolescents’ self-rated health. Journal of Adolescent Health, 41, 479–487. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2007.05.020.
Hämmig, O., & Bauer, G. F. (2013). The social gradient in work and health: a cross-sectional study exploring the relationship between working conditions and health inequalities. BMC Public Health, 13, 1170 https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-13-1170.
Holmbeck, G. (1996). A model of familial relational transformations during the transition to adolescence: parent–adolescent conflict and adaptation. In J. Graber, J. Brooks-Gunn, A. Petersen (Eds.), Transitions through adolescence: Interpersonal domains and context (pp. 167-199). Erlbaum: Mahwah, NJ. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315789286-7.
Hu, L., & Bentler, P. M. (1998). Fit Indices in covariance structure modeling: sensitivity to underparameterized model misspecification. Psychological Methods, 3, 424–453. https://doi.org/10.1037/1082-989X.3.4.424.
Jackson, S., & Goossens, L. (Eds.). (2020). Handbook of adolescent development. Psychology Press. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203969861.
Kaplan, A., Gheen, M., & Midgley, C. (2002). Classroom goal structure and student disruptive behaviour. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 72, 191–211. https://doi.org/10.1348/000709902158847.
Keijsers, L., & Poulin, F. (2013). Developmental changes in parent–child communication throughout adolescence. Developmental Psychology, 49, 2301 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0032217.
Kim, J., & Durden, E. (2007). Socioeconomic status and age trajectories of health. Social Science & Medicine, 65, 2489–2502. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2007.07.022.
Kim, K. W., Wallander, J. L., Peskin, M., Cuccaro, P., Elliott, M. N. & Schuster, M. A. (2018). Associations between parental SES and children’s health related quality of life: the role of objective and subjective social status. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 43(5), 534–542. https://doi.org/10.1093/jpepsy/jsx1395.
Kraus, M. W., & Stephens, N. M. (2012). A Road Map for an Emerging Psychology of Social Class. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 6/9, 642–656. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2012.00453.x.
Limbers, C. A., Newman, D. A., & Varni, J. W. (2009). Factorial invariance of child self-report across race/ethnicity groups: a multigroup confirmatory factor analysis approach utilizing the PedsQL 4.0 Generic Core Scales. Annals of Epidemiology, 19, 575–581. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annepidem.2009.04.004.
Lynch, S. M. (2003). Cohort and life-course patterns in the relationship between education and health: A hierarchical approach. Demography, 40, 309–331. https://doi.org/10.1353/dem.2003.0016.
Lynch, J. W., Smith, G. D., Kaplan, G. A., & House, J. S. (2000). Income inequality and mortality: importance to health of individual income, psychosocial environment, or material conditions. BMJ, 320, 1200–1204. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.320.7243.1200.
Marmot, M., & Bell, R. (2016). Social inequalities in health: a proper concern of epidemiology. Annals of Epidemiology, 26, 238–240. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annepidem.2016.02.003.
Marmot, M., Shipley, M., Brunner, E., & Hemingway, H. (2001). Relative contribution of early life and adult socioeconomic factors to adult morbidity in the Whitehall II study. Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, 55, 301–307. https://doi.org/10.1136/jech.55.5.301.
Meeus, W., Iedema, J., Maassen, G., & Engels, R. (2005). Separation–individuation revisited: On the interplay of parent–adolescent relations, identity and emotional adjustment in adolescence. Journal of Adolescence, 28, 89–106. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2004.07.003.
Miller, G. E., Brody, G. H., Yu, T., & Chen, E. (2014). A family-oriented psychosocial intervention reduces inflammation in low-SES African American youth. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111, 11287–11292. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1406578111.
Miller, G. E., Chen, E., & Parker, K. J. (2011). Psychological stress in childhood and susceptibility to the chronic diseases of aging: Moving toward a model of behavioral and biological mechanisms. Psychological Bulletin, 137, 959–997. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0024768.
Muthén, B. O. (2005, August). Negative variance. Retrieved from http://www.statmodel.com/discussion/messages/14/300.html?1376598279.
Petosa, R. L., & Smith, L. H. (2014). Peer mentoring for health behavior change: A systematic review. American Journal of Health Education, 45, 351–357. https://doi.org/10.1080/19325037.2014.945670.
Rarick, J. R. D., Dolan, C. T., Han, W., & Wen, J. (2017). Relations Between Socioeconomic Status, Subjective Social Status, and Health in Shanghai, China. Social Science Quarterly, 99, 390–405. https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12360.
Rivera, F. I., Guarnaccia, P. J., Mulvaney-day, N., Lin, J. Y., Torres, M., & Alegria, M. (2008). Family cohesion and its relationship to psychological distress among latino groups. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 30, 357–378. https://doi.org/10.1177/0739986308318713.
Sanders, L. M., Federico, S., Klass, P., Abrams, M. A., & Dreyer, B. (2009). Literacy and child health: A systematic review. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 163, 131–140. https://doi.org/10.1001/archpediatrics.2008.539.
Satorra, A., & Bentler, P. M. (2010). Ensuring positiveness of the scaled difference chi-square test statistic. Psychometrika, 75, 243–248. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11336-009-9135-y.
Schuster, M. A., Elliott, M. N., Kanouse, D. E., Wallander, J. L., Tortolero, S. R., Ratner, D. A., Klein, D. J., Cuccaro, P. M., Davies, S. L. & Banspach, S. W. (2012). Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities among Fifth-Graders in Three Cities. New England Journal of Medicine, 367(8), 735–745.
Schreier, H. M. C., & Chen, E. (2013). Socioeconomic status and the health of youth: a multi-level, multi-domain approach to conceptualizing pathways Hannah. Psychological Bulletin, 139, 606–654. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0029416.
Sherman, D. K., Hartson, K. A., Binning, K. R., Purdie-Vaughns, V., & Garcia, J., et al. (2013). Deflecting the trajectory and changing the narrative: how self-affirmation affects academic performance and motivation under identity threat. Journal of Personality and. Social Psychology, 104, 591–618. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0031495.
Singh-Manoux, A., Marmot, M. G., & Adler, N. E. (2005). Does subjective social status predict health and change in health status better than objective status? Psychosomatic Medicine, 67, 855–861. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.psy.0000188434.52941.a0.
Singh-Manoux, A., Adler, N. E., & Marmot, M. G. (2003). Subjective social status: its determinants and its association with measures of ill-health in the Whitehall II study. Social science & medicine, 56, 1321–1333. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0277-9536(02)00131-4.
Stiles, B. L., & Kaplan, H. B. (2004). Adverse social comparison processes and negative self-feelings: A test of alternative models. Social Behavior and Personality, 32, 31–44. https://doi.org/10.2224/sbp.2004.32.1.31.
Subramanyam, M. A., Diez-Roux, A. V., Hickson, D. A., Sarpong, D. F., Sims, M., Taylor, H. A., & Wyatt, S. B. (2012). Subjective social status and psychosocial and metabolic risk factors for cardiovascular disease among African Americans in the Jackson Heart Study. Social Science & Medicine, 74, 1146–1154. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.12.042.
Varni, J. W., Burwinkle, T. M., & Lane, M. M. (2005). Health-related quality of life measurement in pediatric clinical practice: An appraisal and precept for future research and application. Health and Quality of Life Outcomes, 3, 34–43. https://doi.org/10.1186/1477-7525-3-34.
Varni, J. W., Seid, M., & Kurtin, P. S. (2001). PedsQL™ 4.0: Reliability and validity of the pediatric quality of life Inventory™ version 4.0 generic core scales in healthy and patient populations. Medical Care, 39, 800–812. https://doi.org/10.1097/00005650-200108000-00006.
Wallander, J. L., Fradkin, C., Chien, A. T., Mrug, S., Banspach, S. W., Davies, S., Elliott, M. N., Franzini, L. & Schuster, M. A. (2012). Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Health-Related Quality of Life and Health in Children Are Largely Mediated by Family Contextual Differences. Academic Pediatrics, 12(6), 532–538XXXXXX.
Wolff, L. S., Acevedo-Garcia, D., Subramanian, S. V., Weber, D., & Kawachi, I. (2010). Subjective social status, a new measure in health disparities research: do race/ethnicity and choice of referent group matter? Journal of Health Psychology, 15, 560–574. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359105309354345.
Wright, C. E., & Steptoe, A. (2005). Subjective socioeconomic position, gender and cortisol responses to waking in an elderly population. Psychoneuroendocrnology, 30, 582–590. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2005.01.007.
Acknowledgements
This work was funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Prevention Research Centers (Cooperative Agreements CCU409679, CCU609653, CCU915773, U48DP000046, U48DP000057, U48DP000056, U19DP002663, U19DP002664, and U19DP002665). The findings and conclusions in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of the CDC. The contributions made to this research by study participants in the Birmingham, Houston, and Los Angeles areas, other Healthy Passages™ investigators; field teams at each site; and the CDC Division of Adolescent and School Health are gratefully acknowledged.
Author Contribution
K.W.K. performed the statistical computation and S.D. verified the analytical methods and provided further calculations. K.W.K. wrote the manuscript in consultation with J.L.W. and S.D. M.N.E. and M.A.S. contributed to the original data collection, discussed the results, and contributed to the final document. J.L.W. supervised this study.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare no competing interests.
Additional information
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kim, K.W., Wallander, J.L., Depaoli, S. et al. Longitudinal Associations Between Parental SES and Adolescent Health-Related Quality of Life Using Growth Curve Modeling. J Child Fam Stud 30, 1463–1475 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-021-01970-y
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-021-01970-y