Multilevel effects of education and economic resources on infant mortality in developing countries

The literature linking socioeconomic status and health has been accumulating for over a century (Antonovsky 1967). For much of this time, the focus has been on an individual’s social status or societal position as reflected either by their education, occupation, income or wealth acting as a fundamental determinant of health by influencing many different intermediate factors (Adler, Boyce et al. 1994; Link and Phelan 1995). This focus on socioeconomic status as a unified concept may well have been due, in large part, to the recognition that the indicators or components of social status were not only correlated with each other, but generally demonstrated similar associations with health outcomes (Antonovsky 1967; Liberatos, Link et al. 1988; Bollen, Glanville et al. 2001)