Income and economic exclusion: do they measure the same concept?

We used the Canadian Household Panel Survey Pilot and performed multilevel analysis using a sample of 1588 individuals aged 25 to 64, nested within 975 households.While economic exclusion is inversely correlated with both individual and household income, these are not perfectly overlapping constructs. Indeed, not only these indicators weakly correlated, but they also point to slightly different sociodemographic groups at risk of low income and economic exclusion. Furthermore, the respective associations with health are of comparable magnitude, but when these income and economic exclusion indicators are included together in the same model, they point to independent and cumulative, not redundant effects.We explicitly distinguish, both conceptually and empirically, between income and economic exclusion, one of the main dimensions of social exclusion. Our results suggest that the economic exclusion index we use measures additional aspects of material deprivation that are not captured by income, such as the effective hardship or level of economic 'well-being'.In most developed countries, glaring health inequalities exist that reflect, but are not reducible to, lifestyle and health behaviours, and that bear a strong relationship with socioeconomic position [1-3]. This situation has been deemed of such concern to researchers and policymakers alike that limiting these inequalities has recently been put at the forefront of the policy agenda by the World Health Organisation [4]. In Canada for instance, the Government of Quebec passed in 2002 An Act to combat poverty and social exclusion (R.S.Q., c. L-7). This was the first legislation of its kind to be passed in North America and it was received positively by the public health community [5]. Starting in 2008, many other Canadian provinces introduced poverty reduction strategies or action plans [6]. There will be a need for monitoring and evaluating the impact of such policies and strategies on health. Acknowledging the existe