Abbildbarkeit des sozioökonomischen Status in der pharmakoepidemiologischen Forschungsdatenbank GePaRD: Beschreibung und Anwendung am Beispiel des Zusammenhangs mit Adipositas

Abstract

Background: The socioeconomic status is often an important confounder in the context of epidemiological studies. However, this information is typically not included in studies based on claims data, possibly due to a lack of knowledge regarding the completeness and validity of the available information.Objectives: Our aim was to assess and evaluate the socioeconomic status in the German Pharmacoepidemiological Research Database (GePaRD).Methodology: First, an algorithm was developed to assign an educational status to individuals insured in 2017 in order to estimate the socioeconomic status at the individual level. For comparison, the socioeconomic status was estimated based on the place of residence. For plausibility, we examined whether the known association between the presence of obesity and the socioeconomic status could be reproduced.Results: Based on different age groups it was possible to dichotomously estimate the socioeconomic status for 86–93% of those under 60 years of age and for 67% of the 60- to 69-year-olds. For individuals 70 years and older, the proportion of missing values was very high. In all subgroups, the prevalence of obesity was higher among persons of lower socioeconomic status than among persons of higher socioeconomic status. The estimation based on the place of residence produced plausible results, but with smaller differences by socioeconomic status.Discussion and conclusion: Overall, the study results suggest that in terms of plausibility and completeness the information available in GePaRD is well suited for estimating the individual socioeconomic status for age groups up to 69 years.

Keywords

• socioeconomic status
• educational status
• obesity
• index of social deprivation
• electronic health care data