Health, Income, and Inequality

Abstract

The idea that income is associated with health goes back a long way in the literature. Perhaps the most influential work affecting contemporary work in this area was by Samuel Preston, who observed, in comparing mortality rates across countries, that the impact of additional income on health is greater on those with low income than on those with higher income. A related concept is the absolute deprivation or poverty hypothesis . According to this hypothesis, those with the lowest incomes face poorer health and a greater risk of mortality owing to a variety of factors associated with extreme poverty, such as inadequate nutrition, lack of quality health care, exposure to a variety of physical hazards, and heightened stress. Voluminous empirical studies and reviews demonstrate a robust association between income and morbidity and mortality, using various measures of both income and health across samples and at various time points.

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