Socio economic profile

Community Medicine

1. Socio-economic Profile Dr. Ghulam Mustafa Kataria Department of Community Medicine, SKIMS, Srinagar

2. Socio-economic status: It has been defined as the position that an individual or family occupies with reference to the prevailing average standards of cultural and material possessions, income, and participation in group activity of the community. Social Class/Social Stratification : Differentiation on the basis of certain characteristics such as personal characteristics; economic characteristics; cultural characteristics; and educational characteristics.

3. Commonly employed characteristics for social classification are education, occupation and income. Education: Any person who is able to read and write with understanding in any language is considered as literate . It measures the inculcation of values, knowledge and achievements of the individual. Income: P eople have great reluctance to talk about their income truthfully

4. Occupation: It is a major determinant of economic rewards, extent of authority, extent of obligations, degree of status, values and life styles. Registrar General of England has grouped occupation into five classes: I Professional occupation II Intermediate occupation III N Non-manual skilled occupation III M ·Manual skilled occupation IV Partly skilled occupation V Unskilled occupation .

5. Limitations of occupational classification: (1) Heterogeneous grouping: The people in each social class differ not only occupationally, but also in respect of educational status and family background. (2) Occupational mobility: From one occupation to other. Social classes themselves are subject to change.

6. S cales for measuring socio-economic status Kuppuswamy’s Method : (for urban area)It is based on education of the head of the family, occupation of the head of the family and total monthly income of the family. Calculation: Current income group=Original income group of kuppuswamy (1976) x Current Consumer Price Index(CPI) x 0.735(multiplication factor).

7. Limitation of Kuppuswamy Scale : 1. It consider the total family income but not take into account the family size. 2. Education criteria need to be revised. 3. CPI –IW do not encompass all the segment of the population of the country.

8. Prasad’s Method : It is based on per capita family monthly income. Calculation: per capita family monthly income 0f 1961 as suggested by BG Prasad x Correction factor Per capita monthly income = Total monthly income of the family divided by Total members of the family. Correction factor: All India Consumer Price Index (AICPI) x 4.93%(0.0493)

9. Below Poverty Line : Cut off line of total household per capita expenditure sufficient to provide in addition to basic non food items –clothing, transport –a daily intake of 2400 Kcal per person in rural area and 2100 Kcal per person in urban area. (Planning Commission). Social class and health: Diseases have been shown to affect people at various social levels differently. For example, coronary heart disease, hypertension, diabetes all have been shown to have a high incidence in social class I and a gradual decline in incidence in the other social classes.

10. Factors involved in social class differences in health and disease : 1. Physical environment: Differences in mortality and morbidity may be due to differences in physical environment, e.g., housing, safe water, access to clean air, etc. 2. Differences in services provided. 3. Material resources. 4. Genetic endowment. 5. Attitude to disease.