Table 4.

Decomposition of socioeconomic disparities in overall mortality (in Percentages)

Explanatory Factor	Literacy		Economic independence		Income
	“low”	“High”	“low”	“High”	“low”	“High”
Social relations	0.3	0.3	−0.3	−0.1	0.0	0.0
Health behaviors	2.1	2.2	0.7	1.1	0.3	0.3
Access to medical care	0.0	0.1	2.1	2.6	0.2	0.2
All factors: exp(β5)-exp(β1)	2.5		3.0		0.5

Notes: The entries represent the amount of socioeconomic disparities in overall mortality that is explained by each category of factors. Two methods are used. The first method, labeled “low,” is based on the decrease in the coefficient of the SES variable after one category of explanatory factors are taken out of the full model (Model 5 of Table 2). The second method, labeled “high,” is based on the increase in the coefficient of the SES variable after one category of explanatory factors are added to the baseline model (Model 1 of Table 2). In general, the “low” method tends to be too conservative, whereas the “high” method tends to be too liberal. The last row, defined as the difference in the coefficient for the SES variable between the full model and the baseline model, gives the upper limit of the explanatory power. All calculations ignore sampling error.