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

社会经济地位（SES）和健康是相关的（Macintyre，1994年; Pickett和Pearl，2001年），通过影响获得卫生服务;对健康的态度;压力;和缺乏社会支持（Macintyre，Maciver和Sooman，1993年）。最近，低社会经济地位家庭出生的儿童在语言和执行功能方面的认知发展较差，包括工作记忆（Hackman和法拉，2009）。重要的是，工作记忆是一个更强大的预测随后的学术成功比智商（阿洛韦和阿洛韦，2010）。显然，来自低社会经济地位家庭的后果使儿童面临认知劣势的风险。这项研究的大部分都集中在低社会经济地位家庭的不平等的后果。除此之外，不平等的社会与社会问题之间存在相关性;被认为是社会中个人之间地位竞争加剧和社会焦虑加剧的结果。因此，社会中的不平等不仅对低社会经济地位家庭有害，而且对生活在这个社会中的每个人都有害（威尔金森和皮克特，2009年）。然而，几乎没有经验数据可以探索不平等与认知发展之间的关系。本研究将探讨财富/收入不平等与认知发展的关系。通过揭示不平等阻碍各级社会经济地位儿童认知发展的风险，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的论点，以尽量减少不平等，并改善社会，这些处于危险之中的儿童生活在政策和实践的影响。假设是，与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方面的表现较差。方法参与者。本研究将访问出生于布拉德福德（BiB）队列。BiB是一项纵向医学研究，检查贫困多民族人口的儿童期健康和发展，以及随后的成年生活。重要的是，在城市出生的婴儿中有60%出生在英格兰和威尔士最贫穷的20%人口中（Wright等人，2013）。参与者将是生活在高度不平等社区的BiB群体的儿童。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，其中来自BiB队列的受试者将与另一组在年龄和性别方面匹配的受试者进行比较。自变量（IV）是社会经济不平等的水平（高或低），因变量（DV）是认知发展指标的表现。措施IV将通过评估参与者居住的社区的财富/收入差距来确定。此外，可以收集个人参与者的SES。DV测量将涉及一系列标准化认知测量，包括工作记忆成套测试（Pickering和Gathercole，2001）。 分析.将进行回归分析，以建立一个反映社会经济不平等与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.