Subjective socioeconomic status and agreement that health is determined by distal and proximal factors

Abstract

This report examines whether a person's subjective view of their rank relative to others in society—subjective socioeconomic status (SES)—is systematically related to views on distal and proximal determinants of ill-health. This was tested using cross-sectional data from 28,718 respondents from 27 countries who took part in the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) in 2011. Adjusting for age and gender as well as income and education, mixed logistic regression models showed that subjective SES was negatively associated with the likelihood of agreeing with distal explanations for poor health (being poor or because of work/life environment) and positively associated with the likelihood of agreeing with health-related behaviours as a cause for poor health. Subjective SES was not related to agreement that genes influence health. These analyses introduce a social psychological factor into the lay understanding of health determinants and extend models of subjective status and attributional style to health explanations.