Social Class and Health: A Data-Driven Learning Guide

Application

For this exercise, you will be exploring the relationship between income and different measures of health using crosstabulation.

In this dataset, total combined family income group is divided into 11 categories--too many for a useful crosstabulation. So, we recoded it into four categories and called the new variable NEWINC.

Self-Reported Health Status

Next, we recoded self-reported health status (PHSTAT) to exclude those answering "don't know (DK)," "refused (RF)," and "not ascertained (NA)" and called the new variable PHSTAT1.

Run a crosstab to examine the relationship between income and health status. Do those with higher levels of income rate their health status in the same way as those with lower levels?

Family Member in Hospital in Last 12 Months

Next take a look at the variable FAMHOSP, which contains answers to the question, "was anyone in the family in the hospital overnight in the last 12 months?" Answers to this question are coded 1 for "yes" and 2 for "no." (We recoded FHOSPYN to exclude DK/RF as above.)

Now look at the crosstab of FAMHOSP with NEWINC. What do you find?

Health Insurance Coverage

To examine health insurance coverage (NOTCOV), we ran a crosstab with our income variable Are people with lower incomes as likely as those with higher to have health insurance? Look in particular at the bar chart. What does it show?

Health Insurance Offered at Workplace

Now consider whether respondents are offered health insurance though the workplace. We again recoded HIEMPOF to exclude DK/RF/NA and called the new variable INSWORK.

Look at the relationship between income and having insurance through work. For this analysis, we want to limit our sample to only those people who are employed.

What do you find? Are the people who are less likely to have insurance through work those who are more or less likely to be able to afford to purchase it on their own?

Note: The online data analysis system (DAS) used on this site uses a system called Survey Documentation and Analysis (SDA), developed and maintained by the Computer-assisted Survey Methods Program (CSM) at the University of California, Berkeley. Documentation for DAS/SDA can be found on their Web site.

Goal & Concept - Dataset - Application - Interpretation & Summary - Bibliography