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Public Health & Epidemiology vocabulary · Social Determinants and Equity

Socioeconomic status

Meaning in public health & epidemiology, with examples

nounCore term

In public health & epidemiology, socioeconomic status means: A person's or group's position in society based on a combination of income, education and occupation, often used to compare health between social groups.

In Turkish: sosyoekonomik düzey, sosyoekonomik durum

How it is used

Shortened to SES. Studies adjust for SES or compare people of low and high SES. It is measured with indicators such as income, years of schooling, occupational class or area deprivation indices.

Example sentences

  1. Children from families with low socioeconomic status had more tooth decay.

  2. We adjusted the model for age, sex and socioeconomic status.

Common collocations

  • low socioeconomic status
  • high socioeconomic status
  • adjust for socioeconomic status
  • socioeconomic position
  • deprivation index
  • social determinants of healthThe conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age, such as income, education, housing and employment, which strongly shape their health.
  • social gradientThe pattern in which health gets steadily better at each step up the social ladder, so that not only the poorest but everyone below the top has worse health than those above them.
  • health inequalitiesDifferences in health, such as life expectancy or disease rates, between groups of people defined by income, area, ethnicity, gender or other social factors.
  • confoundingA distortion that happens when a third factor is linked to both the exposure and the outcome, making their relationship look stronger, weaker or different than it really is.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Social Determinants and Equity

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This page explains English vocabulary for learners. It is not medical advice.