Gerontology: A Tool for Exploring Social Inequities in Health Across the Life Course

Social inequalities in health accumulate throughout people's life trajectories and negatively impact the iraging. To this end, an instrument was developed to measure them. The method used was the design and validation of an instrument that initially consisted of 100 items. It underwent expert validation, reducing it to 77 items, and concluded with an exploratory factor analysis that resulted in 11 latent ítems to measure the phenomenon. The results indicate that the questionnaire consisted of 11 items that explore the structural and intermédiate determinants of social inequalities in health across the lifecourse: material conditions, education, employment, violence, and nutrition. The analysis shows psychometric adequacy (KMO = 0.64, explained variance 65.97%). For discussion, the instrument allows for the exploration of social inequalities in health across the life course that impact aging and is applicable in clinical and community settings. The conclusión reached in this validation is that the instrument is brief, useful, and relevant for exploring the phenomenon and can be used in settings such as research, gerontological policy design, and interventions.