Is SARS a Poor Man's Disease? Socioeconomic Status and Risk Factors for SARS Transmission

Bucchianeri Grace Wong ()
Additional contact information
Bucchianeri Grace Wong: The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Forum for Health Economics & Policy, 2010, vol. 13, issue 2, 31

Abstract: This paper investigates the link between various risk factors, including socioeconomic status (SES), and the spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in Hong Kong in 2003. A comprehensive data set compiled by the author shows a negative and significant correlation between SARS incidence and various measures of income, but not years of education, unlike previous studies on other health conditions. The income-SARS gradient can be accounted for by controlling for pre-SARS housing values but not an array of measurable living conditions. Areas with more white-collar workers experienced a higher incidence rate, largely driven by the share of service and sales workers, after controlling for SES. These results have implications for the understanding of the SES-health link in the context of a contagious disease, the potential causality of the SES-SARS relationship and for future SARS containment strategies.

Keywords: socioeconomic status; infectious diseases; health; SARS; SES; health gradient (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.2202/1558-9544.1209 (text/html)
For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bpj:fhecpo:v:13:y:2010:i:2:n:10

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/fhep/html

DOI: 10.2202/1558-9544.1209

Access Statistics for this article

Forum for Health Economics & Policy is currently edited by Dana Goldman

More articles in Forum for Health Economics & Policy from De Gruyter
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().