The impact of socioeconomic polarisation and inequalities of wealth and income on cognitive development

众所周知，社会经济地位(SES)和健康是相关的(Macintyre，1994；Pickett和珀尔，2001)，通过影响获得医疗服务的机会、对健康的态度、压力和缺乏社会支持(Macintyre，Maciver，&Sooman，1993)。最近，人们发现出生在低SES家庭的孩子在语言和执行功能，包括工作记忆方面的认知发展较差(Hackman和Farah，2009)。重要的是，工作记忆比智商更能预测未来的学业成功(Alloway和Alloway，2010)。显然，来自低SES家庭的后果使孩子处于认知劣势的风险中。这项研究的大部分专门关注不平等对低社会保障家庭的影响。除此之外，社会不平等与社会问题之间存在关联；被认为是地位竞争加剧的结果，加剧了社会中个人的社会焦虑。因此，社会中的不平等不仅对社会经济地位低的家庭有害，而且对生活在该社会中的每个人都是有害的(Wilkinson和Pickett，2009)。尽管如此，探索不平等和认知发展之间的关系的经验数据仍然很少。本研究将探讨财富/收入不平等与认知发展之间的关系。通过揭示不平等阻碍所有社会经济水平的认知发展的风险，可以为这些儿童设计相关的干预措施。此外，这项调查可能会进一步推动将不平等降至最低的论点，并通过对政策和实践的影响来改善这些处于危险中的儿童所生活的社会。假设是，与来自平等社会的儿童相比，来自高度不平等社会的儿童在认知发展指标上的表现会更差。方法：参赛者。这项研究将获得出生在布拉德福德(BIB)的队列。BIB是一项纵向医学研究，研究儿童时期的健康和发展，以及随后在贫困的多民族人口中的成年生活。重要的是，60%在城市出生的婴儿出生在英格兰和威尔士最贫穷的20%的人口中(Wright等人，2013年)。参与者将是来自围嘴队列的儿童，他们生活在高度不平等的社区。另一组儿童也将从不平等程度较低的社区招募。设计。这项研究将使用观察性配对设计，从围兜队列中测试的参与者将与另一组在年龄和性别方面匹配的参与者进行比较。自变量(IV)是社会经济不平等程度(高或低)，因变量(DV)是认知发展指标的表现。措施。IV将通过评估参与者所在社区的财富/收入差距来确定。此外，还可以收集个别参与者的SES。DV测量将包括一系列标准化的认知测量，包括工作记忆测试电池(Pickering和Gathercole，2001)。分析。将进行回归分析，以产生一个反映社会经济不平等和认知发展之间关系的模型。

IntroductionIt is well established that socioeconomic status (SES) and health are related (Macintyre, 1994; Pickett and Pearl, 2001) through influencing access to health services; attitudes towards health; stress; and a lack of social support (Macintyre, Maciver, & Sooman, 1993). More recently, children born into low SES families have been found to have poorer cognitive development in terms of language and executive function, including working memory (Hackman and Farah, 2009). Importantly, working memory is a more powerful predictor of subsequent academic success than IQ (Alloway and Alloway, 2010). Clearly, the consequences of being from a low SES family leave children at risk of being at cognitive disadvantage. The majority of this research has exclusively focused on the consequences of inequality for low SES families. Beyond this, there is a correlation between societies with inequality and social problems; proposed to be a consequence of increased status competition and exacerbated social anxiety among individuals in a society. Hence, inequalities in society are detrimental not only for the low SES families, but for everyone living in that society (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2009). Still, there is little empirical data available that explores the relationship between inequality and cognitive development. This study will investigate the relationship between inequality of wealth/income and cognitive development. By revealing the risk that inequality impedes on cognitive development for all levels of SES, relevant interventions can be designed for these children. Furthermore, this investigation may further the argument to minimize inequalities, and improve the societies that these at risk children live in by impacting on policy and practice. The hypothesis is that children from high inequality societies will display poorer performance in measures of cognitive development, in comparison to children from equal societies. MethodParticipants. This study would have access to The Born in Bradford (BiB) cohort. BiB is a longitudinal medical research study examining health and development during childhood, and subsequently adult life in a deprived multi-ethnic population. Importantly, 60% of the babies born in the city are born into the poorest 20% of the population of England and Wales (Wright et al, 2013). The participants would be children from the BiB cohort who live in high inequality neighbourhoods. Another group of children would also be recruited from low inequality neighbourhoods. Design. This research would use an observational matched pairs design, where the participants tested from the BiB cohort will be compared to another group matched in terms of age and gender. The independent variable (IV) is the level of socioeconomic inequality (high or low), and the dependent variable (DV) is the performance on measures of cognitive development. Measures. The IV will be determined by assessing the disparities of wealth/income in the neighbourhood that the participants live in. Additionally, the SES of individual participants could be collected. The DV measures will involve a battery of standardised cognitive measures including a working memory test battery (Pickering and Gathercole, 2001). Analysis. A regression analysis will be conducted to produce a model that reflects the relationship between socioeconomic inequality and cognitive development.