Monitoring socioeconomic inequalities in sexually transmitted infections, tuberculosis, and violence: geocoding and choice of area-based socioeconomic measures--the public health disparities geocoding project (US)

Objectives.To determine which area-based socioeconomic measures, at which level of geography, are suitable for monitoring socioeconomic inequalities in sexually transmitted infections (STIs), tuberculosis (TB), and violence in the United States.Methods.Cross-sectional analysis of public health surveillance data, geocoded and linked to area-based socioeconomic measures generated from 1990 census tract, block group, and ZIP Code data. We included all incident cases among residents of either Massachusetts (MA; 1990 population = 6,016,425) or Rhode Island (RI; 1990 population = 1,003,464) for: STIs (MA: 1994–1998, n = 26,535 chlamydia, 7,464 gonorrhea, 2,619 syphilis; RI: 1994–1996, n = 4,473 chlamydia, 1,256 gonorrhea, 305 syphilis); TB (MA: 1993–1998, n = 1,793; RI: 1985–1994, n = 576), and non-fatal weapons related injuries (MA: 1995–1997, n = 6,628).Results.Analyses indicated that: (a) block group and tract socioeconomic measures performed similarly within and across both states, with results more variabl...