Original reportArea Characteristics and Individual-Level Socioeconomic Position Indicators in Three Population-Based Epidemiologic Studies
Section snippets
Sources of Data
The data used in these analyses came from the 1990 U.S. Census and from three population-based epidemiologic studies: the Coronary Artery Disease Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) Study, the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study, and the Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS). The CARDIA sample consisted of persons aged 18–30 years at baseline selected by probability sampling in Birmingham, AL; Chicago, IL; Minneapolis MN; and Oakland, CA (36). Black and white participants were
Interrelations Between Census Indicators and Comparison of Census Tract and Block-Group Measures
Means and medians for the census indicators were similar for census tracts and block-groups (not shown), although the range (1st–99th percentiles) was slightly greater for block-groups. At the block-group level, wealth/income, education, and occupation variables tended to be fairly highly correlated (Spearman's correlations (r): 0.5–0.8). However, percentage of housing units that were owner occupied was less strongly associated with education and occupation (most r < 0.4) and was weakly
Discussion
In these samples, correlations between block-group measures of income/wealth, education, and occupation were generally in the 0.5–0.8 range. Slightly higher correlations were observed for census tract measures. Two factors, reflecting a socioeconomic dimension and a residential stability dimension, emerged in factor analyses of the 13 variables. We found generally high agreement between continuous block-group and census tract measures of the same construct, and most of the variability in
Selected Abbreviations and Acronyms
CARDIA = Coronary Artery Disease Risk Development in Young Adults Study
ARIC = Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study
CHS = Cardiovascular Health Study
ICC BG = Intraclass correlation coefficient for multiple measures on a block-group
ICC CT = Intraclass correlation coefficient for multiple block-groups within a census tract
(Because these abbreviations are nonstandard, they are spelled out on their first usage.)
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by R29 HL59386 (Dr. Diez-Roux) from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. CHS was supported by contracts N01-HC-85079—N01-HC-85086 from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, and Georgetown Echo RC-HL 35129 JHU MRI RC-HL 15103. The ARIC Study was supported by Contracts N01-HC-55015, N01-HC-55016, N01-HC-55018, N01-HC-55019, N01-HC-55020, N01-HC-55021, N01-HC-55022 from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. The CARDIA Study was supported by
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