本文旨在探討父母社經地位與子女健康的關係，利用台灣「國民健康訪問調查」與美國「長期收支追蹤調查」所提供資訊，以父母教育程度做為父母社經地位的衡量指標，而子女健康則以0~12歲兒童自我健康評量報告與身高衡量。在被解釋變數為子女的自我健康評量報告時，本研究利用序列機率迴歸模型進行實證研究分析；而在被解釋變數為子女的身高時，則直接利用多元線性迴歸模型進行實證研究分析。
實證結果顯示，在控制子女個人特徵、父母個人特徵與家庭背景下，子女健康衡量指標為兒童自我健康評量報告時，台灣父親教育程度對子女健康有正向顯著的效果，而美國父親與母親教育程度對子女健康皆有正向顯著的效果；然而，在子女健康衡量指標為身高時，僅有台灣母親教育程度對子女健康有正相顯著的影響。不同兒童健康衡量指標之間實證結果的不同，可能由於不同的兒童健康衡量指標反映子女不同面向的健康狀態所造成。台灣與美國實證結果之間的差異，則可能由於台灣與美國整體生活習慣、生活水平或政府對兒童健康照護福利制度的不同所造成。

This paper is aiming to discuss the relationship between parental socioeconomic status (SES) and children’s health. In our analysis, we use data from 2001 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) in Taiwan and Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) in United States. We use parental education as our measure of SES and use self-reported health status and height as our measures of children’s health. We empirically verify the effect of parental SES on children’s health via order probit and multiple linear regression models.
We find, controlling children’s characteristics, parental characteristic and family background, that children’s self-reported health status is positively related to father’s education in Taiwan, and that children’s self-reported health status is positively related to parental education in United States. Moreover, children’s height is positively related to mother’s education only in Taiwan. We think that the different results may be caused by the differences of overall living standards and health care of the children between Taiwan and United States.

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參考網站：
行政院衛生署國民健康局「國民健康訪問調查」網站。http://nhis.nhri.org.tw/
The Panel Study of Income Dynamics。http://psidonline.isr.umich.edu/