PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Benjamin Chapman
AU  - Kevin Fiscella
AU  - Paul Duberstein
AU  - Ichiro Kawachi
AU  - Peter Muennig
TI  - Measurement confounding affects the extent to which verbal IQ explains social gradients in mortality
AID  - 10.1136/jech-2013-203741
DP  - 2014 Aug 01
TA  - Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health
PG  - 728--733
VI  - 68
IP  - 8
4099  - http://jech.bmj.com/content/68/8/728.short
4100  - http://jech.bmj.com/content/68/8/728.full
SO  - J Epidemiol Community Health2014 Aug 01; 68
AB  - Background IQ is thought to explain social gradients in mortality. IQ scores are based roughly equally on Verbal IQ (VIQ) and Performance IQ tests. VIQ tests, however, are suspected to confound true verbal ability with socioeconomic status (SES), raising the possibility that associations between SES and IQ scores might be overestimated. We examined, first, whether two of the most common types of VIQ tests exhibited differential item functioning (DIF) favouring persons of higher SES and/or majority race/ethnicity. Second, we assessed what impact, if any, this had on estimates of the extent to which VIQ explains social gradients in mortality. Methods Data from the General Social Survey-National Death Index cohort, a US population representative dataset, was used. Item response theory models queried social-factor DIF on the Thorndike Verbal Intelligence Scale and Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scales, Revised Similarities test. Cox models examined mortality associations among SES and VIQ scores corrected and uncorrected for DIF. Results When uncorrected for DIF, VIQ was correlated with income, education, occupational prestige and race, with correlation coefficients ranging between |0.12| and |0.43|. After correcting for DIF, correlations ranged from |0.06| to |0.16|. Uncorrected VIQ scores explained 11–40% of the Relative Index of Inequalities in mortality for social factors, while DIF-corrected scores explained 2–29%. Conclusions Two of the common forms of VIQ tests appear confound verbal intelligence with SES. Since these tests appear in most IQ batteries, circumspection may be warranted in estimating the amount of social inequalities in mortality attributable to IQ.