Painting a Truer Picture of US Socioeconomic and Racial/Ethnic Health Inequalities: The Public Health Disparities Geocoding Project
Top Cited Papers
- 1 February 2005
- journal article
- Published by American Public Health Association in American Journal of Public Health
- Vol. 95 (2) , 312-323
- https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.2003.032482
Abstract
We describe a method to facilitate routine monitoring of socioeconomic health disparities in the United States. We analyzed geocoded public health surveillance data including events from birth to death (c. 1990) linked to 1990 census tract (CT) poverty data for Massachusetts and Rhode Island. For virtually all outcomes, risk increased with CT poverty, and when we adjusted for CT poverty racial/ethnic disparities were substantially reduced. For half the outcomes, more than 50% of cases would not have occurred if population rates equaled those of persons in the least impoverished CTs. In the early 1990s, persons in the least impoverished CT were the only group meeting Healthy People 2000 objectives a decade ahead. Geocoding and use of the CT poverty measure permit routine monitoring of US socioeconomic inequalities in health, using a common and accessible metric.Keywords
This publication has 35 references indexed in Scilit:
- Monitoring Socioeconomic Inequalities in Sexually Transmitted Infections, Tuberculosis, and Violence: Geocoding and Choice of Area-Based Socioeconomic Measures—The Public Health Disparities Geocoding Project (US)Public Health Reports®, 2003
- Place effects on health: how can we conceptualise, operationalise and measure them?Social Science & Medicine, 2002
- World Health Report 2000: how it removes equity from the agenda for public health monitoring and policy Commentary: comprehensive approaches are needed for full understandingBMJ, 2001
- Accessing Population Health Information through Interactive Systems: Lessons Learned and Future DirectionsPublic Health Reports®, 2001
- On the Validity of Using Census Geocode Characteristics to Proxy Individual Socioeconomic CharacteristicsJournal of the American Statistical Association, 1996
- On the Validity of Using Census Geocode Characteristics to Proxy Individual Socioeconomic CharacteristicsJournal of the American Statistical Association, 1996
- Race or class versus race and class: mortality differentials in the United StatesThe Lancet, 1990
- Analysis of Vital Statistics by Census TractJournal of the American Statistical Association, 1959
- The Use of Census Tracts in Analyzing the Population of a Metropolitan CommunityJournal of the American Statistical Association, 1933
- The Incidence of Illness in a General Population Group: General Results of a Morbidity Study from December 1, 1921, through March 31, 1924, in Hagerstown, Md.Public Health Reports (1896-1970), 1925