 Equalisation of socioeconomic differences in injury risks at school age? A study of three age cohorts of Swedish children and adolescentsK. Engström, L. Laflamme and F. Diderichsen Social Science & Medicine, 2003, vol. 57, issue 10, 1891-1899 Abstract: The objective of the study was to investigate whether there is equalisation of socioeconomic differences in injury risks among Swedish children and adolescents. Equalisation was defined as a reduction in relative differences in risks between socioeconomic groups. All Swedish children and adolescents aged 5-19 in 1990 were grouped into three age cohorts and allocated to four household socioeconomic statuses, considering boys and girls separately. Each cohort was then followed up over a 5-year period (1990-1994) with regard to three injury diagnosis groups (as registered in the national Hospital Discharge and Causes of Death registers) with documented socioeconomic differences: injuries due to traffic, interpersonal violence, and self-infliction. The Relative Index of Inequality was used to measure the magnitude of relative socioeconomic differences, for each year of observation. Where applicable, relative risks were computed in order to see whether equalisation benefited all socioeconomic groups. Tendencies of equalisation were found among girls for two of the diagnosis groups: in traffic injuries for the youngest cohort (aged 5-9 in 1990) and in the case of self-inflicted injuries within the two older cohorts (10-14 and 15-19, in 1990). In conclusion, this study provides limited evidence of equalisation in injury risks between socioeconomic groups among Swedish adolescents. Equalisation appears to be a gender-specific phenomenon, that is, among girls, and manifests itself around the age of 5-13 in traffic-related injuries, when girls are in first and second levels of compulsory school, and later on in self-inflicted injuries. Given the economic recession in Sweden at the time of the study period, whether the equalisation processes are attributable to school, peer group and youth culture effects--as hypothesised by West--is debatable, particularly in the case of self-inflicted injuries. Keywords: Equalisation; process; Socioeconomic; inequality; Intentional; and; unintentional; injuries; Childhood; Youth; Sweden (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:socmed:v:57:y:2003:i:10:p:1891-1899 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article Social Science & Medicine is currently edited by Ichiro (I.) Kawachi and S.V. (S.V.) Subramanian More articles in Social Science & Medicine from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.