IJE Advance Access originally published online on March 31, 2005
International Journal of Epidemiology 2005 34(2):284-285; doi:10.1093/ije/dyi020
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Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Epidemiological Association © The Author 2005; all rights reserved.
Commentary |
Commentary: Estimating and understanding area health effects
Department of Epidemiology and Center for Social Epidemiology and Population Health, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
Correspondence: 1214 South University 2nd Floor, Ann Arbor, MI 48104, USA. E-mail: adiezrou@umich.edu
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
In this issue of the Journal, Breeze et al. report that living in a deprived area is associated with poor quality of life in a large population-based sample of older adults living in the UK.1 Their paper adds to a large body of work reporting associations between area socio-economic characteristics or area deprivation and a variety of health outcomes.2 The focus on the elderly population is especially interesting because, as Breeze et al. note, there are reasons to believe that area characteristics may be especially relevant to the health and well-being of elderly people who are likely to spend more time in their local areas and rely on their local areas for services and social interactions.
Like other researchers, Breeze et al. analyse data from an observational study to estimate ‘area effects’ after controlling for individual-level social class. The need to control for differences in the