The United States has the highest number of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the world, with high variability in cases and mortality between communities. We aimed to quantify the associations ...between socio-economic status and COVID-19–related cases and mortality in the U.S.
The study design includes nationwide COVID-19 data at the county level that were paired with the Distressed Communities Index (DCI) and its component metrics of socio-economic status.
Severely distressed communities were classified by DCI>75 for univariate analyses. Adjusted rate ratios were calculated for cases and fatalities per 100,000 persons using hierarchical linear mixed models.
This cohort included 1,089,999 cases and 62,298 deaths in 3127 counties for a case fatality rate of 5.7%. Severely distressed counties had significantly fewer deaths from COVID-19 but higher number of deaths per 100,000 persons. In risk-adjusted analysis, the two socio-economic determinants of health with the strongest association with both higher cases per 100,000 persons and higher fatalities per 100,000 persons were the percentage of adults without a high school degree (cases: RR 1.10; fatalities: RR 1.08) and proportion of black residents (cases and fatalities: Relative risk(RR) 1.03). The percentage of the population aged older than 65 years was also highly predictive for fatalities per 100,000 persons (RR 1.07).
Lower education levels and greater percentages of black residents are strongly associated with higher rates of both COVID-19 cases and fatalities. Socio-economic factors should be considered when implementing public health interventions to ameliorate the disparities in the impact of COVID-19 on distressed communities.
•Socio-economic factors play an important role in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) prevalence and mortality.•Lower education level was the strongest association with both cases and fatalities.•The higher proportion of Black residents was also associated with cases and fatalities.•The poverty rate and median income were also associated with COVID-19 cases.•Median income and change in employment were also associated with COVID-19 fatalities.
Previous research indicates that lower-class individuals experience elevated negative emotions as compared with their upper-class counterparts. We examine how the environments of lower-class ...individuals can also promote greater compassionate responding-that is, concern for the suffering or well-being of others. In the present research, we investigate class-based differences in dispositional compassion and its activation in situations wherein others are suffering. Across studies, relative to their upper-class counterparts, lower-class individuals reported elevated dispositional compassion (Study 1), as well as greater self-reported compassion during a compassion-inducing video (Study 2) and for another person during a social interaction (Study 3). Lower-class individuals also exhibited heart rate deceleration-a physiological response associated with orienting to the social environment and engaging with others-during the compassion-inducing video (Study 2). We discuss a potential mechanism of class-based influences on compassion, whereby lower-class individuals' are more attuned to others' distress, relative to their upper-class counterparts.
Background
Low family socio‐economic status (SES) is usually associated with children’s poor academic achievement, but the mechanisms underlying this relationship are less understood.
Aims
The ...present study examined the mediating role of parental academic involvement and the moderating role of parental subjective social mobility in this relationship with cross‐sectional data.
Sample and methods
A total of 815 fourth‐ to sixth‐grade children were recruited from five elementary schools in China. Family SES (measured by parents’ education, parents’ occupation and family income) and parental subjective social mobility were obtained directly from parents, parental academic involvement was reported by children, and information on children’s academic achievement was collected from their teachers.
Results
The results showed that (1) both family SES and parental academic involvement were positively correlated with children’s Chinese and math achievement, (2) parental academic involvement mediated the relationships between family SES and children’s Chinese and math achievement, and (3) parental subjective social mobility moderated the path from family SES to parental academic involvement. The models of children’s Chinese and math achievement showed that the association between family SES and parental academic involvement was weak among children’s parents who reported high levels of subjective social mobility.
Conclusions
These findings suggest that there is a pathway from family SES to children’s academic achievement through parental academic involvement and that this pathway is dependent on the level of parental subjective social mobility.
It is well attested that high socio‐economic status (SES) is associated with larger vocabulary size estimates in young children. This has led to growing interest in identifying associations and ...mechanisms that may contribute to this relationship. In this study, parent‐child reading behaviors were investigated in relation to vocabulary size in a large‐scale study of linguistically and socio‐economically diverse families. This study sampled 902 infants in Singapore, a multilingual society. Both single‐language (dominant and non‐dominant) and dual‐language vocabulary size estimates were obtained and related to family SES, demographic details, and home literacy activities. Results demonstrated that both single‐language (dominant and non‐dominant) and dual‐language infant vocabulary size estimates were predicted by parental education levels. Further analyses revealed that parent‐child book reading activities mediated the relationship between parental education and infant vocabulary size. Findings suggest that shared book reading may narrow effects of socio‐economic disparities on early language development.
Research Highlights
Socio‐economic status (SES) was examined in relation to infant vocabulary size in a linguistically and socio‐economically diverse setting.
Mediating effects of the home literacy environment on infant vocabulary size were measured.
Socio‐economic factors, notably parental education, had both direct and indirect effects on vocabulary size.
The home literacy environment mediated effects of SES on infant vocabulary size.
This study focuses on the relationship between parent‐child bookreading, socio‐economic status, and vocabulary development. Findings suggest that parent‐child bookreading may protect against against socio‐economic vulnerability in language development.
Background: Although behavioral weight loss treatment produces weight losses of 5-10% of initial body weight, many participants experience weight regain after treatment has ended. A potential culprit ...is that understanding is lacking on how to effectively modify grocery purchasing decisions. One likely factor influencing grocery purchasing decisions is socioeconomic status (SES). This study was among the first to examine relationships between SES and grocery purchasing decisions as well as potential mediators of this predicted relationship. To fully capture SES, both an objective (poverty index) and a subjective (MacArthur Scale of Subjective Social Status (SSS)) measure were used. SSS is likely more nuanced than SES and captures processes that might impact grocery purchasing decisions such as education and upbringing. Methods: Participants (n=159) completed an online survey examining SES, SSS, recent grocery purchasing decisions over the past 12 months, and three possible factors (nutrition knowledge, nutrition self-efficacy, and perceived stress) that may mediate the effect of SES on grocery purchasing decisions. Results: Linear regression analyses revealed a significant relationship between subjective social status, but not poverty index, and grocery purchasing decisions (b = 0.79, p < 0.001). Mediation analyses were inconclusive, as none of the three potential mediator variables emerged as significant. Conclusions: These findings suggest that SSS may be an important predictor of grocery purchasing decisions, but the underlying mechanism is unclear. Thus, grocery purchasing behaviors may be influenced by socioeconomic factors other than income alone such as education, racial/cultural identity or history of financial insecurity (e.g., during childhood). Behavioral weight loss clinicians may wish to attend to non-income based indicators of SES when individually tailoring treatment, and future research should explore alternative potential mechanisms of the relationship between SSS and grocery purchasing.
Low early-life absolute and relative socioeconomic status (SES) may contribute to socioeconomic disparities in pregnancy complications (i.e., gestational diabetes mellitus GDM, preeclampsia/eclampsia ...PE, hypertensive disorders of pregnancy HDP; preeclampsia/eclampsia, gestational hypertension, chronic hypertension), but their independent associations with pregnancy complications have not been studied. This study investigated associations of early-life poverty and relative SES with risks of GDM, PE, and HDP.
National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health data were used (GDM n = 802; PE n = 813; HDP n = 801). Objective poverty was defined as wave I low-income or receipt of federal nutrition assistance benefits. Relative SES was self-reported at wave V (ages 33–39) by asking whether the participant’s family was financially worse off than average when growing up. Logistic regressions assessed relationships between poverty, relative SES, and self-reported lifetime diagnoses of GDM, PE, or HDP.
Lifetime prevalences of GDM, PE, and HDP were 9.23%, 12.00%, and 21.93%, respectively. Low relative SES (odds ratio: 2.04 1.07, 3.89) and poverty (odds ratio: 1.81 0.97, 3.38) were independently associated with GDM but not with PE or HDP.
Early-life poverty and relative SES are associated with GDM; understanding the mechanisms underlying these associations may help identify novel intervention targets to reduce socioeconomic disparities in GDM.
•Family poverty during adolescence is associated with the risk of later GDM.•Low, but not high, relative SES when growing up is associated with later GDM risk.•Neither early-life family poverty nor relative SES are associated with PE or HDP.
In four studies, the authors investigated the proposal that in the context of an elite university, individuals from relatively lower socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds possess a stigmatized ...identity and, as such, experience (a) concerns regarding their academic fit and (b) self-regulatory depletion as a result of managing these concerns. Study 1, a correlational study, revealed the predicted associations between SES, concerns about academic fit, and self-regulatory strength. Results from Studies 2 and 3 suggested that self-presentation involving the academic domain is depleting for lower (but not higher) SES students: After a self-presentation task about academic achievement, lower SES students consumed more candy (Study 2) and exhibited poorer Stroop performance (Study 3) relative to their higher SES peers; in contrast, the groups did not differ after discussing a nonacademic topic (Study 3). Study 4 revealed the potential for eliminating the SES group difference in depletion via a social comparison manipulation. Taken together, these studies support the hypothesis that managing concerns about marginality can have deleterious consequences for self-regulatory resources.
In recent years, the quality of education available to children has become increasingly dependent on the social and economic demographics of neighborhoods in which the children live. This study ...assesses the role of community violence in explaining the relation between socio‐economic status (SES) and academic outcomes and the potential of positive school climate to promote academic achievement. With a sample of 297 Chicago public elementary schools, we examine community‐level and school‐level data and use Geographic Information Systems (GIS) mapping to illustrate how school academic achievement coincides with neighborhood economics and crime statistics. Results support the hypothesized mediation, such that lower SES was associated with lower academic achievement, and violent crime partially mediated this relation. School climate was positively associated with academic achievement, and student safety significantly moderated the relation between SES and academic achievement. Implications for theory, research, and intervention are discussed.
Highlights
Violent crime mediates the relation between neighborhood factors and elementary school academic achievement.
Safety is identified as a key dimension of school climate for promoting academic achievement.
School‐level academic outcomes were associated with neighborhood factors based on geographic location.
Previous research has demonstrated that subjective socio‐economic status (SES) and school social capital are associated with a wide range of socio‐emotional outcomes for children. Less is known about ...whether subjective SES is linked to overall child development and whether school social capital is a mediator in developing countries. The current study aimed to examine the association between subjective SES and positive youth development (PYD) among young adolescents in China, explore whether student–teacher relationships and student–student relationships mediated this association, and test whether there were gender differences in these associations. The analytical sample included a total of 1011 seventh‐graders (mean age = 13.24, SD = .69; 53.70% boys) recruited from Beijing and Anhui Provinces. The results showed that subjective SES was positively and significantly associated with PYD and that student–teacher relationships and student–student relationships played independent and joint mediating roles in the link between the two constructs. In addition, girls benefited more than boys from having closer relationships with teachers. Our findings highlight the importance of promoting school social capital in reducing PYD disparities across subjective SES levels, and suggest that school should be an effective venue for interventions to promote PYD among young adolescents in China.
Demands for change in a relationship, particularly when met by behavioral withdrawal, foreshadow declines in relationship satisfaction. Yet demands can give partners opportunities to voice concerns, ...and withdrawal can serve to de-escalate conflict, stabilizing satisfaction instead (e.g., Overall, Fletcher, Simpson, & Sibley, 2009). We aim to reconcile these competing possibilities by arguing that withdrawal in response to requests for change will be detrimental among couples who possess the social, educational, and economic capital needed to address these requests, whereas withdrawal in response to partner demands will be constructive among couples with fewer resources for making the requested changes. Study 1 (N = 515 couples; 18-month follow-up) replicates the harmful effects of observed demand/withdraw communication on changes in wives' satisfaction among relatively affluent couples, while documenting benefits of demand/withdraw communication among relatively disadvantaged couples. Using 4 waves of observational data, Study 2 (N = 431 couples; 9-, 18- and 27-month follow-ups) shows that socioeconomic risk moderates the covariation between the demand/withdraw pattern and wives' relationship satisfaction, with higher levels of withdrawal again proving to be beneficial when socioeconomic risk is high. In both studies, behavioral withdrawal by men appears to be maladaptive when couples have resources and capacities to enact desired changes, but may be adaptive when those resources and capacities are lacking. Efforts to change couple communication without appreciating the larger social and economic contexts of those behaviors may be counterproductive.
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