ArticlePreventive medicine2016
Socioeconomic inequalities in the healthiness of food choices: Exploring the contributions of food expenditures.
Article in Preventive medicine, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 137 papers, 6 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
137 citing papers in PubMed, 6 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Socioeconomic differences in bone mass in pediatric populations: A systematic review.Osteoporosis international : a journal established as result of cooperation between the European Foundation for Osteoporosis and the National Osteoporosis Foundation of the USA · 2026Pooled it
- The Association between Community Food Environments and Health Outcomes in High-Income Countries: A Systematic Literature Review.Current nutrition reports · 2025Pooled it
- Effectiveness of sugar taxation policies in Asia and Africa: a systematic review.Frontiers in oral health · 2025Pooled it
- Socioeconomic status and health behavior in children and adolescents: a systematic literature review.Frontiers in public health · 2023Pooled it
- Social Media and Children's and Adolescents' Diets: A Systematic Review of the Underlying Social and Physiological Mechanisms.Advances in nutrition (Bethesda, Md.) · 2022Pooled it
- The use of commercial food purchase data for public health nutrition research: A systematic review.PloS one · 2019Pooled it
- The Moderating Role of Dietary Quality and Dietary Fibre Intake on the Mood Effects of Positive Expressive Writing: A Pilot Study.Nutrients · 2024Trial
- Socioeconomic position and the influence of food portion size on daily energy intake in adult females: two randomized controlled trials.The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · 2023Trial
- A Multicomponent mHealth-Based Intervention (SWAP IT) to Decrease the Consumption of Discretionary Foods Packed in School Lunchboxes: Type I Effectiveness-Implementation Hybrid Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial.Journal of medical Internet research · 2021Trial
- Causal inference methods for systematic reviews.Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA · 2026Article
- Immigrant background as a determinant of caries development in Swedish children.BMC oral health · 2026Article
- Distinct spatial associations of adversity with hippocampal macro- and microstructure in early adolescence.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Consumer Preferences, Perceived Benefits, and Determinants of Fruit and Vegetable Consumption in Urban Kumasi, Ghana.Food science & nutrition · 2026Article
- Article
- Lipid Metabolism and Obesity in Early Life: Drivers of Chronic Lung Disease From Development to Adulthood.Molecular nutrition & food research · 2026Review
- Environmental and economic impact of a vegan versus traditional mediterranean diet: OMNIVEG study.European journal of nutrition · 2026Article
- Gut microbiome composition and function reflect socioeconomic deprivation.NPJ biofilms and microbiomes · 2026Article
- The cost of a healthy diet and its association with BMI in crisis-stricken Lebanon.Public health nutrition · 2026Article
- Early life socioeconomic status and risk of overweight and obesity across childhood and adolescence in four low and middle income countries.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Prevalence of infection in amputations in patients with diabetic foot ulcer: a retrospective study.Frontiers in clinical diabetes and healthcare · 2026Article
77 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Investigations of the contribution of food costs to socioeconomic inequalities in diet quality may have been limited by the use of estimated (vs. actual) food expenditures, not accounting for where individuals shop, and possible reverse mediation between food expenditures and healthiness of food choices. This study aimed to explore the extent to which food expenditure mediates socioeconomic inequalities in the healthiness of household food choices. Observational panel data on take-home food and beverage purchases, including expenditure, throughout 2010 were obtained for 24,879 UK households stratified by occupational social class. Purchases of (1) fruit and vegetables and (2) less-healthy foods/beverages indicated healthiness of choices. Supermarket choice was determined by whether households ever visited market-defined high-price and/or low-price supermarkets. Results showed that higher occupational social class was significantly associated with greater food expenditure, which was in turn associated with healthier purchasing. In mediation analyses, 63% of the socioeconomic differences in choices of less-healthy foods/beverages were mediated by expenditure, and 36% for fruit and vegetables, but these figures were reduced to 53% and 31% respectively when controlling for supermarket choice. However, reverse mediation analyses were also significant, suggesting that 10% of socioeconomic inequalities in expenditure were mediated by healthiness of choices. Findings suggest that lower food expenditure is likely to be a key contributor to less-healthy food choices among lower socioeconomic groups. However, the potential influence of cost may have been overestimated previously if studies did not account for supermarket choice or explore possible reverse mediation between expenditure and healthiness of choices.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.