Income inequality and population health

doi:10.1136/bmj.324.7343.978

BMJ 2002;324:978 ( 20 April )

Letters

Income inequality and population health

Better measures of social differentiation and hierarchy are needed

Hierarchy and health are related

Better measures of social differentiation and hierarchy are needed

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR $---$ Mackenbach's editorial reads like an obituary for the hypothesis that income inequality is related to population health.¹But a substantial body of evidence of such a relation has accumulatedover the past 20 years, not only in the United States but alsoin Brazil, Russia, Taiwan, and England. Attempts to explain awaythis relation are rarely relevant to more than one of the manycontexts in which itoccurs.

The fact that health is more closely related to income in developed societies than to differences in income between them suggestseffects of relative income or social status.² But if incomedistribution has its main effect through differences in socialstatus, and individual income (or education) is a proxy for individualsocial status, controlling income distribution for individualincome makes little sense.³ It is a difference without a distinction,and more status equality is likely to improve averagehealth.

As . . . [Full text of this article]

CiteULike

Complore

Connotea

Del.icio.us Add to Digg

Digg

StumbleUpon Add to Technorati

Technorati What's this?

Relevant Article

Income inequality and population health: Johan P Mackenbach
BMJ 2002 324: 1-2. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

This article has been cited by other articles:

Ladin, K. (2008). Risk of Late-Life Depression Across 10 European Union Countries: Deconstructing the Education Effect. J Aging Health 20: 653-670 [Abstract]
Woods, L. M, Rachet, B., Riga, M., Stone, N., Shah, A., Coleman, M. P (2005). Geographical variation in life expectancy at birth in England and Wales is largely explained by deprivation. J. Epidemiol. Community Health 59: 115-120 [Abstract] [Full text]
Muntaner, C., Eaton, W. W., Miech, R., O'Campo, P. (2004). Socioeconomic Position and Major Mental Disorders. Epidemiol Rev 26: 53-62 [Full text]
Fritzell, J., Nermo, M., Lundberg, O. (2004). The impact of income: assessing the relationship between income and health in Sweden. Scand J Public Health 32: 6-16 [Abstract]