Income Inequality And Health

In nations where the top 1 percent hold a greater share of national income people tend to have a lower sense of personal well being according to university of oxford saïd business school research.

Income inequality and health. Professor michael marmot of the department of epidemiology and public health at the university college of london directed two important studies relating social status to health. Subramanian a professor of population health and geography at harvard who has studied the phenomenon. Evidence that income inequality is associated with worse health is reviewed. There is a robust literature linking income inequality to health disparities and thus widening income inequality is cause for concern.

Researchers are also finding links between inequality and mental health. Inequality effects over and above average income are pretty well established said s v. Second there is growing scholarly and public recognition that many nonclinical factors education employment race ethnicity and geography influence. Reducing income inequality will improve population health and wellbeing.

This means that reducing income inequality across a population is an important component of any strategy to reduce health inequalities. Extreme inequality appears to affect how people perceive their well being. First income inequality in the united states has increased dramatically in recent decades while health indicators have plateaued and life expectancy differences by income have grown. Policies with regard to health spending influenced welfare of contemporary and next period s generations which then influenced economic growth.

A study from finland aittomaki et al 2014 suggested that widening differences in income inequality account for almost half of the increase in health inequalities and one from sweden found a detrimental effect of municipal income inequality on self rated health rostila et al 2012. Health inequality persists today though our public health response our modern metropolitan health laws must address more insidious causes and conditions of illness. So let s begin with these studies the results of which show a causal relationship between income and physiological health. But he said one contributor may be the growing gap between the high and low income people in the u s.

The long term demographic and economic data with regard to developed oecd countries showed that increase in general. The causal processes may extend to violence and other problems with social gradients. Income inequality physiological health. For instance the 2015 county health rankings report which included income inequality measures for the first time found that the unhealthiest counties also had greater income inequality.

Health income inequality and economic developments were endemically interrelated.