Abstract

CHILET-ROSELL, Elisa; ALVAREZ-DARDET, Carlos  and  DOMINGO-SALVANY, Antònia. Use of Spanish proposals for measuring social class in health sciences. Gac Sanit [online]. 2012, vol.26, n.6, pp.566-569. ISSN 0213-9111.  https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gaceta.2011.10.014.

Objective: Recognizing the need for a consensus tool to measure social class in health sciences, in 1995 the Spanish Society of Epidemiology (Sociedad Española de Epidemiología [SEE]) made a proposal for such a measure. The aim of this article was to explore the bibliometric impact of the SEE's proposal. Methods: Articles citing the SEE's report and those citing articles published as a result of the report were identified using Google Scholar and Scopus. The information extracted from these articles consisted of year, nationality and impact factor of the journal, self-citation, information source, subject area, city of the first author, type of publication, study design, use of social class as a variable, number of social class categories, and the use of education or occupation to determine social class. Results: The number of citations progressively increased. Citations also showed heterogeneity in the subject. Generally, citations were found in original articles and articles with a cross sectional design, were published in journals with impact factor and were by researchers working in Barcelona or Madrid. Conclusions: The SEE's proposal has proved to be an increasingly useful tool, applicable in different contexts. As suggested by the SEE, this proposal may need to be updated.

Keywords : Social class; Bibliometrics; Spanish Society of Epidemiology; Social indicators.

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