Commentary: Socioeconomic deprivation and health and the ecological fallacy

people of different birth weights differ is unlikely to be adequately represented by socioeconomic status as indicated by occupation.What is clear is that more research is required on the interrelation between early development, adult experiences and behaviour, and later risk of mortality.This research should be carried out in recognition of the fact that, particularly in the presence of crudely measured variables such as occu- pational social class, confounding can produce strong associations which are resistant to simple interpretations and are robust to attempts at statistical "control.