Modification of Kuppuswamy's Socioeconomic Status Scale in the Context of Nepal, 2019.
Modification of Kuppuswamy's Socioeconomic Status Scale in the Context of Nepal, 2019.
复制标题
2019 年尼泊尔背景下库普斯瓦米社会经济地位量表的修订。
DOI:
--
复制
发表时间:
2019
影响因子:
--
通讯作者:
K. Acharya
中科院分区:
文献类型:
--
作者:
S. Joshi;K. Acharya
Assessment of socioeconomic status (SES) of the individual and family is an important aspect of public health research. There is no standardized scale to assess the SES of the Nepalese population. The National Planning Commission of Nepal has developed a multidimensional poverty index (MPI) in 2018.1 MPI deals with the different dimensions of poverty such as health, education, and living standard. There are different indicators of the above-noted dimensions with the deprivation cut off values. Nepal Rastra Bank doesn’t publish consumer price index of rural and urban areas separately, instead, it publishes an index of Kathmandu Valley, Terai and hilly region separately. Terai and hilly regions consist of both rural and urban areas while Kathmandu valley consists of only urban areas. MPI gives a good overview of the multidimensional poverty indicators but does not explain the socioeconomic status. A number of scales are recommended for classifying SES in India. They are also being used in Nepal due to similarities in many socioeconomic characteristics between the two countries. Commonly used socioeconomic scales in India are Rahudkar (1960), B G. Prasad (1961), Udai Parikh (1964), Jalota (1970), Kulshrestha (1972), Kuppuswamy (1976), Srivastava (1978), and Bhardwaj (2001).2-9 Among them, Kuppuswamy’s scale is commonly used in the Nepalese context and the three aspects of Kuppuswamy’s scale are education, occupation of the head of the family, and total monthly family income. However, the latest modification of Kuppuswamy’s scale in context to Nepal was done in 2009.10 Since then, there has been no modification of that scale and all the researchers are obliged to use the modification that was done ten years back. The Constitution of Nepal (2015) has declared the country as the Federal Democratic Republic with 753 local levels out of which 293 (276 Municipalities, 11 Sub-metropolises, and 6 Metropolises) have been classified as urban areas. The preliminary estimate of GDP per capita at current price stands at NRs. 103,335 (US$ 1004) for the fiscal year 2017/18.11 There has been a significant growth in the consumer price index since 2009. It is very essential therefore to modify this scale, taking into account the current national price indices of Nepal. We have modified the Kuppuswamy scale from 1976 (Table 1) in the context of Nepal in which the educational and occupational criteria however remain the same. We have updated the economic criteria by using the latest national consumer price index of Kathmandu Valley (NCPI) provided by the Nepal Rastra Bank.12 Firstly, the family income stated in Indian rupees (INR) in original scale is converted to Nepalese rupees by multiplying with 1.6 (INR 100 = 160 NR) and the conversion factor between NCPI for 1976 (Kuppuswamy’s scale was proposed in 1976) and NCPI 2018 has been determined. Editorial