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. 2008 Jul;98(7):1263–1270. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2007.124735

TABLE 1—

Demographic Characteristics of Women Aged 18 to 64 Years, by Socioeconomic Position (SEP): Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 1988–1994

Low SEP Middle SEP High SEP
Total, no. 878 878 879
Black, % 61.3 38.8 26.5
Age, y, mean (SD) 36.8 (13.0) 38.7 (12.7) 41.2 (11.3)
Education, y, %
    ≤ 11 36.3 6.5 0.9
    12 53.8 51.0 19.1
    ≥ 13 9.9 42.4 80.0
    PIR score,a mean (SD) 1.5 (0.8) 3.0 (1.0) 4.6 (1.8)
    SEI score,b mean (SD) 23.6 (6.4) 31.4 (9.1) 58.0 (21.1)
Parity, no., %
    0 14.7 24.6 27.9
    1 17.1 19.3 18.8
    2 27.1 27.9 30.8
    3 19.8 15.8 12.5
    4–6 18.5 11.3 9.7
    ≥ 7 2.9 0.9 0.3
Parity, mean (SD) 2.4 (1.9) 1.8 (1.6) 1.6 (1.4)
No. of years since most recent birth, mean (SD) 11.7 (10.6) 13.6 (10.9) 14.1 (10.3)
Dental insurance coverage, % 53.4 67.2 68.5
One or more dental visits per year, % 37.6 60.8 77.6
Married, % 49.1 61.9 73.6
Median no. of contacts per week 50.7 52.0 46.3
1 or more days with no food/money for food in previous month, % 7.3 1.8 0.5
Current smoking, % 33.5 24.8 16.3
Median serum cotinine level, μg/mL 1.1 0.4 0.2
No. of servings of cariogenic foods per month, mean (SD) 64.4 (55.7) 50.1 (46.8) 41.8 (33.3)
Diabetes (self-reported), % 6.5 2.3 3.2
No. of missing teeth,c mean (SD) 5.2 (6.37) 3.8 (5.50) 2.3 (4.27)

Note. PIR = poverty–income ratio; SEI = Duncan socioeconomic index. With the exception of social support (P = .60), all demographic factors differed significantly between the 3 socioeconomic tertiles (P ≤ .001).

aPIR is the ratio of the midpoint of a family’s income category to the inflation-adjusted poverty threshold; a ratio below 1 indicates that the family is below the poverty threshold.

bThe SEI is an occupational prestige measure used by the US Census Bureau, which is a mixture of occupational prestige scores and census occupation scores.

cMedian numbers of missing teeth were 3, 1, and 0 in the low, middle, and high tertiles, respectively.