Table 3.
Estimated Healthy Eating Index value by level of parent education, before and after adjusting for neighborhood and home food environment
Model 1 (estimated mean HEI, 95% CI) | Model 2 (estimated mean HEI, 95% CI) | Model 3 (estimated mean HEI, 95% CI) | Model 4 (estimated mean HEI, 95% CI) | |
Education | ||||
< high school | 38.08 (37.3, 38.9) | 38.23 (37.4, 39.1) | 38.39 (37.6, 39.2) | 38.52 (37.7, 39.4) |
High school/GED | 37.96 (37.3, 38.6) | 38 (37.3, 38.7) | 38.2 (37.6, 38.9) | 38.23 (37.6, 38.9) |
Some college | 38.08 (37.5, 38.7) | 38.07 (37.5, 38.7) | 38.09 (37.5, 38.7) | 38.09 (37.5, 38.7) |
College degree | 39.41 (38.8, 40) | 39.33 (38.7, 39.9) | 39.27 (38.7, 39.9) | 39.22 (38.6, 39.8) |
Difference in SHEI between lowest and highest educational category | -1.33 (-2.24, -0.42) | -1.1 (-2.04, -0.15) | -0.87 (-1.78, 0.04) | -0.7 (-1.65, 0.24) |
p for difference | 0.0041 | 0.0227 | 0.0606 | 0.145 |
NOTES: SPAN Healthy Eating Index (SHEI) is a composite measure combining responses to consumption of healthy foods and unhealthy foods, scaled to 100, and coded so that higher scores represent healthier diets. See Table 1 for a listing of the healthy and unhealthy foods comprising the SHEI. Table 3 presents regression-derived mean values of the SHEI for each of the educational categories, as well as the contrast between the highest and lowest categories of education. Model 1 examines differences in children’s SHEI scores across levels of parental education after adjusting for race/ethnicity and rural/urban location. Model 2 adds neighborhood environment measures to Model 1; Model 3 adds home food environment measures to Model 1. Model 4 is the full model, and adds both neighborhood and home food environment measures to Model 1.