Why is Mortality Higher in Unequal Societies? Interpreting Income Inequality and Mortality in Canada and the United States

N.A. Ross, M.C. Wolfson, J.-M. Berthelot and J.R. Dunn

Centre for Health Services and Policy Research from University of British Columbia - Centre for Health Services and Policy Research.

Abstract: There is a growing body of empirical evidence to suggest that the way a society distributes its wealth affects the health of its people -independent of how wealthy a society is in absolute terms. In this paper, we review the current thinking about how income dispersion and mortality might be related and suggest that income inequality gas a number of social correlates that allow for the existence of unhealthy (i.e. unsafe, conflictual, lacking social cohesion) smaller-scale environments in the home, at work and in local communities.

Keywords: MORTALITY; HEALTH; INEQUALITY (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 I12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 24 pages
Date: 1999
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fth:brichs:2000:4

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