TY - JOUR
T1 - Credibility of subgroup analyses by socioeconomic status in public health intervention evaluations
T2 - An underappreciated problem?
AU - Inglis, Greig
AU - Archibald, Daryll
AU - Doi, Lawrence
AU - Laird, Yvonne
AU - Malden, Stephen
AU - Marryat, Louise
AU - McAteer, John
AU - Pringle, Jan
AU - Frank, John
PY - 2018/12
Y1 - 2018/12
N2 - There is increasing interest amongst researchers and policy makers in identifying the effect of public health interventions on health inequalities by socioeconomic status (SES). This issue is typically addressed in evaluation studies through subgroup analyses, where researchers test whether the effect of an intervention differs according to the socioeconomic status of participants. The credibility of such analyses is therefore crucial when making judgements about how an intervention is likely to affect health inequalities, although this issue appears to be rarely considered within public health. The aim of this study was therefore to assess the credibility of subgroup analyses in published evaluations of public health interventions. An established set of 10 credibility criteria for subgroup analyses was applied to a purposively sampled set of 21 evaluation studies, the majority of which focussed on healthy eating interventions, which reported differential intervention effects by SES. While the majority of these studies were found to be otherwise of relatively high quality methodologically, only 8 of the 21 studies met at least 6 of the 10 credibility criteria for subgroup analysis. These findings suggest that the credibility of subgroup analyses conducted within evaluations of public health interventions’ impact on health inequalities may be an underappreciated problem.
AB - There is increasing interest amongst researchers and policy makers in identifying the effect of public health interventions on health inequalities by socioeconomic status (SES). This issue is typically addressed in evaluation studies through subgroup analyses, where researchers test whether the effect of an intervention differs according to the socioeconomic status of participants. The credibility of such analyses is therefore crucial when making judgements about how an intervention is likely to affect health inequalities, although this issue appears to be rarely considered within public health. The aim of this study was therefore to assess the credibility of subgroup analyses in published evaluations of public health interventions. An established set of 10 credibility criteria for subgroup analyses was applied to a purposively sampled set of 21 evaluation studies, the majority of which focussed on healthy eating interventions, which reported differential intervention effects by SES. While the majority of these studies were found to be otherwise of relatively high quality methodologically, only 8 of the 21 studies met at least 6 of the 10 credibility criteria for subgroup analysis. These findings suggest that the credibility of subgroup analyses conducted within evaluations of public health interventions’ impact on health inequalities may be an underappreciated problem.
KW - Equity and public health interventions
KW - Health inequalities
KW - Health inequities
KW - Policy impact by socioeconomic status
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85055658906&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.ssmph.2018.09.010
DO - 10.1016/j.ssmph.2018.09.010
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85055658906
VL - 6
SP - 245
EP - 251
JO - SSM - Population Health
JF - SSM - Population Health
SN - 2352-8273
ER -