Is Subjective Social Status Associated with Maternal and Child Allostatic Load and Maternal Mental Health in Rural Nicaragua?
Date
2022-01
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Abstract
The marginalisation of women and children is manifest in disproportionately poor maternal and child health (MCH) outcomes cross-culturally. Subjective social status (SSS), a measure of one’s perceived rank relative to others within the social hierarchy, has been found to be more predictive of health than objectives measures of socioeconomic status (OSS) in some contexts, but a paucity of data exists on the topic outside of high-income countries (HICs). This cross-sectional study aims to help fill this gap by investigating the association between SSS and measures of maternal and child physical health, conceptualised as allostatic load (AL), and maternal mental health (MMH) in Los Robles, Nicaragua. Multiple regression modelling was carried out to test the hypotheses that SSS would be associated with weighted indices of maternal and child AL, and also common mental disorder (CMD) risk, as assessed using a screening questionnaire. A high prevalence of probable CMDs (22.8%) was documented among mothers in the sample. Higher SSS was significantly associated with an increased risk for CMDs (adj R2 = 0.25, p < 0.001) among mothers in Los Robles but, inconsistent with most other research on the topic, was not significantly associated with maternal (adj R2 = 0.024, p = 0.096) or child (adj R2 = 0.014, p = 0.17) AL. These findings indicate that SSS has important implications for MMH and that findings in HICs concerning predictors of physical health may not be applicable to low-and-middle-income countries.
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Keywords
Subjective Social Status, Allostatic Load, Maternal and Child Health, Common Mental Disorders, LMIC
Citation
Kushlyk, K. (2022). Is subjective social status associated with maternal and child allostatic load and maternal mental health in rural Nicaragua? (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.