title: Reexamining the evidence of an ecological association between income inequality and health.
abstract: Several recent studies have made the provocative claim that income inequality is an important determinant of population health. The primary evidence for this hypothesis is the repeated finding--across countries and across U.S. states--that there is an association between income inequality and aggregate health outcomes. However, most of these studies examine only a single cross section of data and employ few (or even no) control variables. We examine the relationship between income inequality and aggregate health outcomes across thirty countries over a four-decade span and across forty-eight U.S. states over five decades. In large part, our findings contradict previous claims.
authors: College of William and Mary, USA.
authors: J M
authors: JM
authors: Mellor
authors: J
authors: J
authors: Milyo
mesh_terms: D015984:Causality; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004463:Ecology; D004522:Educational Status; D014943:Global Health; D006302:Health Services Research; D006305:Health Status Indicators; D006801:Humans; D007182:Income / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D007226:Infant Mortality / Q000639:trends; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008017:Life Expectancy / Q000639:trends; D011634:Public Health; D012044:Regression Analysis; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology