Socio-economic inequalities in clustering of health compromising behaviours among Indian adolescents

A cross-sectional survey was undertaken among adolescents (15–19 years of age) from four different neighborhoods of Delhi and belonging to different socioeconomic groups. The sampling frame included four strata based on the area of residence, namely urban, rural, urban slums (a compact area of at least 300 population or about 60–70 households of poorly built congested tenements with inadequate infrastructure), and resettlement colonies (legalized settlement by the government with a slightly better off infrastructure than slums).<br><br>A multistage random sampling technique was used to obtain the required sample from each of the four strata – urban, rural, slums, and resettlement colonies. The urban areas were divided into municipal wards. Two wards were randomly selected from the listed wards. From the rural areas, two “village panchayats” which are the local administrative units were randomly picked. The enlisted slums and resettlement colonies by the Government of Delhi were used to identify two slums and resettlement colonies. Census was conducted in each of the selected areas to list households with eligible adolescents. The eligible adolescents were then randomly picked from the list by simple random sampling through system-generated random numbers in STATA (version 13.0 StataCorp, 4905 Lakeway Drive, College Station, Texas 77845 USA). <br><br><br>