Addi van Bergen

Cumulation of ill health and low agency 123 6 Second, we estimated the relative risk with a 95% confidence interval (CI) for each health indicator and personal control by SE, education, income, labour market position and migration background. Complex samples cross tabs with relative risk tests were used. Herein, the RR represents the probability of a health indicator or personal control being present in the exposed group (P SE+ or P SF+ ) divided by the probability in the non-exposed group (P SE - or P SF -), in which SE is social exclusion and SF is one of the social factors; + is present and – is not present. An RR between 3 and 8 was considered strong, that between 1.8 and 3.0 was considered moderate and that between 1.4 and 1.8 was considered modest [26]. Third, we calculated the population attributable fractions from the RRs and the prevalences of SE and social factors (SF) with the following formulas: PAF SE = P SE+ * (RR SE -1)/(P SE+ * (RR SE -1) + 1). PAF SF = P SF+ * (RR SF -1)/(P SF+ * (RR SF -1) + 1). PAFs and RRs were also calculated for the four dimensions of SE: limited social participation, material deprivation, inadequate access to basic social rights and lack of normative integration. Finally, we calculated the overlap between SE and the four social factors, explored the contribution of SE to the stratifying power of the social factors and investigated the added value of combining SE with one of the social factors in terms of higher RRs and PAFs. Significance was assumed if there was no overlap between the 95% CIs. RESULTS General characteristics The sample consisted of 18,401 women (55.3%) and 14,884 men (44.7%), with a mean age of 57.1 years (SD 17.7) (Table 1). Almost half of the respondents lived with a partner and no children (46.4%), and over one-third (34.5%) lived alone. In the weighted sample, the mean age was lower, i.e., 44.9 years (SD 17.5), and the proportion living with partners and no children was lower (42.9%), as was the proportion living alone (22.7%). Weighted data were used in all subsequent analyses.