Social inequalities and health: ecological study of mortality in Budapest, 1980-3 and 1990-3

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Budapest comprises 22 local administrative districts ranging in population size from 34 778 to 174 509. We used three census indicators of disadvantage in 1980 and 1990: the percentage of unskilled workers among the economically active population; the percentage of residents aged25 years who had not completed a course at university or college; and, as an indicator of overcrowding, the number of people per 100 rooms in occupied dwellings. We converted each indicator to a z score (with a mean of 0 and a standard deviation of 1). These z scores were summed to give a composite social disadvantage indicator.2 We sorted the districts in descending order of disadvantage, on the basis of the mean composite indicator for 1980 and 1990, and grouped together the five most disadvantaged districts and the five least disadvantaged.