Missed opportunities in monitoring socioeconomic status.

Socioeconomic status (SES) is one of the strongest known predictors of variations in health status in both industrialized and less industrialized countries. Despite advancements in the quality and availability of medical care, the advent of universal education, increased economic development, and marked improvements in the standard of living during this century, the strong inverse association between SES and morbidity and mortality that was evident in our earliest health data has diminished little, if any, over time in the United States. This pattern exists for infant and adult mortality, chronic and infectious disease morbidity, and psychiatric morbidity. One recent study found, for example, that poverty makes a contribution to the national death rate in the United States that is comparable to that of cigarette smoking.[1]