Addi van Bergen

Chapter 6 122 Independent variables - Social exclusion. Social exclusion (SE) was measured with the Social Exclusion Index for Health Surveys (SEI-HS) [22]. The index consists of 17 items that measure four dimensions of SE: 1) social (limited social participation), 2) economic (material deprivation), 3) political (inadequate access to basic social rights) and 4) cultural (lack of normative integration). The scores were dichotomised into 1) moderate to strong exclusion and 2) some or no exclusion. As the cut-off point, we used the 95th percentile score in the 2012 Dutch adult population [22]. - Social stratifiers. The following four social factors were included: • educational level: highest completed education (self-report) low, i.e., no schooling or elementary schooling versus low-middle, middle and high schooling; • household income: standardised disposable annual household income after payment of income tax and social contributions lower than or equal to € 16,100 versus higher 4 ; • labour market position: self-reported status low, i.e., unemployed, disabled for work and/or on social assistance, versus “other”, i.e., paid labour, retired, housewife/man and/or student; and • migration background: mother and/or father born in a non-Western country versus born in the Netherlands and/or other Western countries (source: Statistics Netherlands) . General characteristics. The following measures were included: sex, age and household composition. Age was treated as a continuous variable. Household composition was divided into four categories: family with children (i.e., living with partner, parent(s) and/or other adult(s) with children), family without children (ditto without children), single parent family and living alone. Statistics First, we described the demographic composition, health, level of personal control and social stratification of the study population. To account for the complex sampling design and selective non-response, sample weights were calculated by Statistics Netherlands based on a linear model with 9 sociodemographic variables and their interaction terms [28]. For each of the measures, weighted descriptive statistics (percentages or means with standard deviations) were computed, and for the demographic measures, unweighted statistics were also computed. 4 € 16,100 corresponds to the lowest income quintile in the Netherlands (source: Statistics Netherlands) .