GeoSES - um Índice Socioeconômico para Estudos de Saúde no Brasil

Objective: to define an index that summarizes the main dimensions of the socioeconomic context for research purposes, evaluation and monitoring health inequalities. Methods: the index was created from the 2010 Brazilian Demographic Census, whose variables selection was guided by theoretical references for health studies, including seven socioeconomic dimensions: education, mobility, poverty, wealth, income, segregation and deprivation of resources and services. The index was developed using principal component analysis, and was evaluated for its construct, content and applicability components. Results: GeoSES-BR dimensions showed good association with HDI-M (above 0.85). The model with the poverty dimension best explained the relative risk of avoidable cause mortality in Brazil. In the intraurban scale, the model with GeoSES-IM was the one that best explained the relative risk of mortality from circulatory system diseases. Conclusion: GeoSES showed significant explanatory potential in the studied scales.