Strong, M., Maheswaran, R. and Pearson, T. (2006) A comparison of methods for calculating general practice level socioeconomic deprivation. International Journal of Health Geographics, 5 (29). ISSN 1476-072X
Abstract
Background: A measure of the socioeconomic deprivation experienced by the registered patient population of a general practice is of interest because it can be used to explore the association between deprivation and a wide range of other variables measured at practice level. If patient level geographical data are available a population weighted mean area-based deprivation score can be calculated for each practice. In the absence of these data, an area-based deprivation score linked to the practice postcode can be used as an estimate of the socioeconomic deprivation of the practice population. This study explores the correlation between Index of Multiple Deprivation 2004 (IMD) scores linked to general practice postcodes (main surgery address alone and main surgery plus any branch surgeries), practice population weighted mean IMD scores, and practice level mortality (aged 1 to 75 years, all causes) for 38 practices in Rotherham UK.
Results: Population weighted deprivation scores correlated with practice postcode based scores (main surgery only, Pearson r = 0.74, 95% CI 0.54 to 0.85; main plus branch surgeries, r = 0.79, 95% CI 0.63 to 0.89). All cause mortality aged 1 to 75 correlated with deprivation (main surgery postcode based measure, r = 0.50, 95% CI 0.22 to 0.71; main plus branch surgery based score, r = 0.55, 95% CI 0.28 to 0.74); population weighted measure, r = 0.66, 95% CI 0.43 to 0.81).
Conclusion: Practice postcode linked IMD scores provide a valid proxy for a population weighted measure in the absence of patient level data. However, by using them, the strength of association between mortality and deprivation may be underestimated.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2006 Strong et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health (Sheffield) > School of Health and Related Research (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Sherpa Assistant |
Date Deposited: | 26 Jan 2007 |
Last Modified: | 05 Jun 2014 12:54 |
Published Version: | http://www.ij-healthgeographics.com/content/5/1/29 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | BioMed Central |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1186/1476-072X-5-29 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:1923 |