ISSN 2326-7291
International Journal of Public Health and Epidemiology ISSN 2326-7291 Vol. 7 (9), pp. 001-009, September, 2018. © International Scholars Journals
Full Length Research Paper
Priority families for health care according to family socio-demographic risks
Doa’a Ahmed Saleh*, Sahar Yassin, Hend Aly Sabry and Madiha Said Abdelrazik
Department of Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo, Egypt.
Accepted 16 May, 2018
Abstract
Socio-economic inequalities have been shown to be associated with disease burden in developing as well as developed countries. The aim of the study was (1) to test the association between family socio-demographic risks and health problems, and (2) to identify a “family sociodemographic risk line” above which families are at significant risk of developing health problems. A cross sectional community-based study was conducted in two districts in Cairo, Egypt. Socio-demographic status was assessed for 5400 families by a family socio-demographic risk score (FSRS) calculated according to the crowding index, family size, age and sex structure, education, economic dependency, smoking and addiction. The continuous FSRS (range: 0 - 12) was transformed into 5 quintiles. Association between FSRS and 21 health problems was done for the studied families using unconditional logistic regression analysis. It was found that increased FSRS was associated with a progressive increase in the prevalence of family health problems. The risk of health problems was significantly higher for the 5th compared to the 1st FSRS quintile families (odds ratio: 1.8 and 95% confidence interval: 1.41 – 2.35) which represented about 15% (784/5400) of the studied families. These would be considered the priority families for health services. Thus, the FSRS “7” was considered the “family socio-demographic risk line”.
Key words: Socioeconomic status, family socio-demographic risk, health problems, health status, risk line.