Date of Conferral

2016

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Public Health

Advisor

Joseph Robare

Abstract

While epidemiological research has generated new knowledge about the treatment and prevention of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) through smoking secession, the socioeconomic status (SES) of people with the disease has been under investigated. Thus, the purpose of this study was to determine the predictability of association between SES and COPD. This study was based on the ecological theory, which states that health and disease may have multiple underlying factors. This study was a secondary analysis of archived data from the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR). The dataset was collected for the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS)" study. Variables were measured at the nominal, ordinal, and continuous levels. In this cross-sectional quantitative analysis, logistic regression was used to inform the research questions. The results showed that neither education, income, nor occupation was a predictor of COPD. The logistic regression reported the significance of the predictability of education, income, and occupation to be Ï? = 1.000, Ï? = .498, Ï? = .581, respectively, with odd ratios and confidence interval of 1.007 (.987, 1.028), 1.018 (.948, 1.094), 1.429 (.684, 2.988). Neither education, income, nor occupation yielded a significant statistic value for a Ï? Ë? .05 or a p Ë? .01. These non-significant results regarding the relationship between the SES of a person and COPD reaffirmed that cigarette smoking remains the known determinant of the disease. The social implications of these research findings are that more stringent laws and mandates need to be enacted to discourage easy access to the proven determining factor of COPD: cigarettes smoking.

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