AREA VARIATIONS IN HEALTH BEHAVIORS

Many studies of health inequalities use household income as in indicat or of socioeconomic status. Because household income is usually subjec t to high item non-response rates, area or census-based measures have been suggested as an alternative. A number of studies have shown that these are as good as or better than conventional measures of socioecon omic status at identifying variations in health status and use of heal th services. This paper examines the association of the median househo ld income of the enumeration area in which a subject lives, with a var iety of oral and general health behaviours. After the confounding effe cts of age and sex were controlled for, this area-based indicator was significantly associated with six of ten health behaviours for which d ata were collected. Four of the associations remained significant afte r the effects of household income were controlled for. These results s uggest that area-based measures of socioeconomic status may have a use ful role in understanding the influence of social contexts on health b ehaviours.