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Cited by 41Health disparities and outcomesIncome, Poverty, and InequalityIntergenerational and Educational Inequality Studies

Measuring Child Socio-Economic Position in Birth Cohort Research: The Development of a Novel Standardized Household Income Indicator

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Pizzi, Costanza, Richiardi, Matteo, Charles, Marie-Aline, Heude, Barbara, Lanoe, Jean-Louis, Lioret, Sandrine, Brescianini, Sonia, Toccaceli, Virgilia +4 more·2020·International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
DOI 10.3390/ijerph17051700PMC PMC7084936
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Abstract

The assessment of early life socioeconomic position (SEP) is essential to the tackling of social inequalities in health. Although different indicators capture different SEP dimensions, maternal education is often used as the only indicator in birth cohort research, especially in multi-cohort analyses. Household income, as a direct measure of material resources, is one of the most important indicators, but one that is underused because it is difficult to measure through questionnaires. We propose a method to construct a standardized, cross-cohort comparable income indicator, the “Equivalized Household Income Indicator (EHII)”, which measures the equivalized disposable household income, using external data from the pan-European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EUSILC) surveys, and data from the cohorts. We apply this method to four studies, Piccolipiù and NINFEA from Italy and ELFE and EDEN from France, comparing the distribution of EHII with other SEP-related variables available in the cohorts, and estimating the association between EHII and child body mass index (BMI). We found that basic parental and household characteristics may be used, with a fairly good performance, to predict the household income. We observed a strong correlation between EHII and both the self-reported income, whenever available, and other individual socioeconomic-related variables, and an inverse association with child BMI. EHII could contribute to improving research on social inequalities in health, in particular in the context of European birth cohort collaborative studies.

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  • The Equivalised Household Income Indicator overcame some of the difficulties deriving from total disposable income.

    “The Equivalised Household Income Indicator (EHII) [9] overcame some of the difficulties deriving from total disposable income with data from the European Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) [10] and the characteristics of the study participants.”

    From Socioeconomic position, family context, and child cognitive development (2024) · cites this paper as [9]

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Authors
Pizzi, C., Richiardi, M., Charles, M.-A., Heude, B., Lanoe, J.-L., Lioret, S., Brescianini, S., Toccaceli, V., Vrijheid, M., Merletti, F., Zugna, D., & Richiardi, L.
Affiliations
  • University of Turin (IT)
  • University of Essex (GB)
  • Inserm (FR)
  • Research Team on Early Life Origin (EAROH), Université de Paris, CRESS, INSERM, INRA, F-75004 Paris, France
  • Istituto Superiore di Sanità (IT)
  • Universitat Pompeu Fabra (ES)
Corresponding author
Pizzi, Costanza
ORCID
Venue
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Publisher
MDPI AG
Published
2020-03-05
Volume
17
Issue
5
Pages
1700
ISSN
1660-4601 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.3390/ijerph17051700
PMC
PMC7084936
OpenAlex
W3009305812
Cited by
41
References
0
Citations by year
2026: 1 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 3
FWCI
3.18
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Open Access at Essex (University of Essex) (acceptedVersion)
  • HAL (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • Institutional Research Information System University of Turin (University of Turin) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • Dipòsit Digital de la Universitat de Barcelona (Universitat de Barcelona) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
  • Repositori digital de la UPF (Universitat Pompeu Fabra) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
Funders
Horizon 2020 (733206, 774548)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Health › Health disparities and outcomes
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Income, Poverty, and Inequality
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Intergenerational and Educational Inequality Studies
Keywords
health disparities, childhood body mass index, maternal education
MeSH terms
Child, France, Humans, Income, Italy, Reference Standards, Social Class, Socioeconomic Factors, Cohort Studies, Body Mass Index

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