Data-Driven Learning Guide | printer-friendly version |
Social Class and Health: A Data-Driven Learning Guide
Goal & Concept
Goal
The goal of this exercise is to explore the ways in which health status, health care access, and health care utilization differ between social classes. Crosstabulation will be used.
Concept
Social class is a measure of relative power, privilege, and opportunity in a society. Individuals in higher social classes generally have greater power and access to resources than individuals in lower social classes. Researchers may assign individuals to social classes on the basis of criteria such as occupation, education, income, wealth, and place of residence.
Health can be generally defined as physical, mental, and social well-being. Like social class, an individual's health can be measured in many different ways, depending on the needs and preferences of the researcher. Researchers may measure self-reported health, medical diagnoses, number or frequency of medical visits, number of work days missed due to illness, receipt of government disability payments, and many more.
Social class is consistently linked with health outcomes in the United States and other countries. This is due to factors such as differences between social classes in food quality and eating habits, housing quality, stress, affordability of health care, occupational hazards, and knowledge of healthy behaviors.
Examples of possible research questions about social class and health:
- How are income and education related to self-rated health?
- How are income and education related to frequency of medical visits?
- How are income and education related to health insurance coverage?
- Do people of different social classes have different medical problems?
- Is there a relationship between social class and work-related injuries?