THE ROLE OF SOCIOECONOMIC-STATUS AND INJURY MORBIDITY RISK IN ADOLESCENTS

Objective: To examine the patterns of socioeconomic status and injury morbidity in adolescents. Designs: Prospective cohort study. Settings: Metropolitan school district in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. Parti cipants: There were 1245 students (89%) recruited from 1400 aged 12 to 16 years. Interventions: None. Measures and Results: Baseline variabl es of socioeconomic status used for this analysis included township of residence (from the 1990 census data ranked by the percentage of hous eholds below the poverty level) and employment status of the parents ( student self-report). Life-table analysis revealed no differential ris k of injury by socioeconomic status. Similar results were found when s tratified by gender, race, injury type (sport vs nonsport), and injury place (school vs home). Conclusions: The results indicate that in thi s cohort of adolescents, socioeconomic status does not seem to be a co ntributing risk factor for injury.