The diffusion of health technologies: Cultural and biological divergence

Casper Hansen

European Economic Review, 2013, vol. 64, issue C, 21-34

Abstract: This paper proposes the hypothesis that genetic distance to the health frontier influences population health outcomes. Evidence from a world sample suggests that genetic distance, interpreted as long-term cultural and biological divergence, is an important factor in understanding health inequalities across countries. Specifically, the paper documents a remarkably robust negative link between genetic distance to the United States and population health—as measured by life expectancy at birth and the adult survival rate—even after accounting for an extensive set of possible confounders, such as GDP per capita and various climatic factors. Consistent with the interpretation that genetic distance is related to population health indirectly through human barriers to the diffusion of modern health technologies, the evidence indicates that the gene gradient emerges at the onset of the international epidemiological transition.

Keywords: Population health; Medical technologies; Barrier effect; Long-term divergence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I15 J10 O11 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014292113000974
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: The diffusion of health technologies: Cultural and biological divergence (2011)
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:eee:eecrev:v:64:y:2013:i:c:p:21-34

DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2013.08.001

Access Statistics for this article

European Economic Review is currently edited by T.S. Eicher, A. Imrohoroglu, E. Leeper, J. Oechssler and M. Pesendorfer

More articles in European Economic Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().