Summary article ‘Income inequality and health: A causal review’
– Pickett & Wilkinson (2015)
Abstract: health tends to be worse in more unequal societies. Income inequality
affects population health and wellbeing. The evidence that large income differences
have damaging health and social consequences is strong and in most countries,
inequality is increasing. Narrowing the gap will improve health and wellbeing of
populations.
Key points:
• Evidence that income inequality is associated with worse health is
reviewed.
• It meets established epidemiological and other scientific criteria for
causality.
• The causal processes may extend to violence and other problems with
social gradients.
• Reducing income inequality will improve population health and wellbeing.
Introduction
A wide range of social outcomes, associated with disadvantage within societies, are
more common in societies with bigger income differences between rich and poor.
Rather than this pattern being confined to physical health, it may apply also to
mental health, and public health issues (e.g. violence, teenage births, child wellbeing,
obesity, etc.).
Large income differences between rich and poor lead to an increasing frequency of
most of the problems associated with low social status within societies.
History
Hypothesis: greater inequality might act to strengthen the effects of socioeconomic
status differentiation among outcomes with social gradients.
Popperian theory testing
Hypothesis: more equal societies are healthier because they are more cohesive and
enjoy better social relations (Wilkinson).
Epidemiological criteria for causality
Consistency
The geographical scale at which income inequality is measured is an important
methodological issue, because it points to a distinction between the large majority of
supportive studies and the unsupportive minority.
– Pickett & Wilkinson (2015)
Abstract: health tends to be worse in more unequal societies. Income inequality
affects population health and wellbeing. The evidence that large income differences
have damaging health and social consequences is strong and in most countries,
inequality is increasing. Narrowing the gap will improve health and wellbeing of
populations.
Key points:
• Evidence that income inequality is associated with worse health is
reviewed.
• It meets established epidemiological and other scientific criteria for
causality.
• The causal processes may extend to violence and other problems with
social gradients.
• Reducing income inequality will improve population health and wellbeing.
Introduction
A wide range of social outcomes, associated with disadvantage within societies, are
more common in societies with bigger income differences between rich and poor.
Rather than this pattern being confined to physical health, it may apply also to
mental health, and public health issues (e.g. violence, teenage births, child wellbeing,
obesity, etc.).
Large income differences between rich and poor lead to an increasing frequency of
most of the problems associated with low social status within societies.
History
Hypothesis: greater inequality might act to strengthen the effects of socioeconomic
status differentiation among outcomes with social gradients.
Popperian theory testing
Hypothesis: more equal societies are healthier because they are more cohesive and
enjoy better social relations (Wilkinson).
Epidemiological criteria for causality
Consistency
The geographical scale at which income inequality is measured is an important
methodological issue, because it points to a distinction between the large majority of
supportive studies and the unsupportive minority.
