What (or who) causes health inequalities: Theories, evidence and implications?

McCartney, Gerry; Collins, Chik; Mackenzie, Mhairi

doi:10.1016/j.healthpol.2013.05.021

Cited by 141 publications

(109 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…These are all important social determinants of health and mortality which social and economic policies can alleviate (Bambra, 2011, Coburn, 2000, McCartney et al, 2013). …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Increasing inequality in age of death at shared levels of life expectancy: A comparative study of Scotland and England and Wales

Seaman

Leyland

Popham

2016

SSM - Population Health

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There is a strong negative correlation between increasing life expectancy and decreasing lifespan variation, a measure of inequality. Previous research suggests that countries achieving a high level of life expectancy later in time generally do so with lower lifespan variation than forerunner countries. This may be because they are able to capitalise on lessons already learnt. However, a few countries achieve a high level of life expectancy later in time with higher inequality. Scotland appears to be such a country and presents an interesting case study because it previously experienced lower inequality when reaching the same level of life expectancy as its closest comparator England and Wales. We calculated life expectancy and lifespan variation for Scotland and England and Wales for the years 1950 to 2012, comparing Scotland to England and Wales when it reached the same level of life expectancy later on in time, and assessed the difference in the level of lifespan variation. The lifespan variation difference between the two countries was then decomposed into age-specific components. Analysis was carried out for males and females separately. Since the 1950s Scotland has achieved the same level of life expectancy at least ten years later in time than England and Wales. Initially it did so with lower lifespan variation. Following the 1980s Scotland has been achieving the same level of life expectancy later in time than England and Wales and with higher inequality, particularly for males. Decomposition revealed that higher inequality is partly explained by lower older age mortality rates but primarily by higher premature adult age mortality rates when life expectancy is the same. Existing studies suggest that premature adult mortality rates are strongly associated with the social determinants of health and may be amenable to social and economic policies. So addressing these policy areas may have benefits for both inequality and population health in Scotland.

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“…These are all important social determinants of health and mortality which social and economic policies can alleviate (Bambra, 2011, Coburn, 2000, McCartney et al, 2013). …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Increasing inequality in age of death at shared levels of life expectancy: A comparative study of Scotland and England and Wales

Seaman

Leyland

Popham

2016

SSM - Population Health

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“…Apesar de Arrow (1963) e Grossman (1972 incorporarem a saúde nas discussões da teoria econômica, não apresentavam como foco a questão da equidade.A preocupação com as desigualdades em saúde surge na Europa, a partir da identifi cação de que diferentes grupos sociais apresentavam diferentes níveis de redução das taxas de mortalidade, índice tradicionalmente utilizado para avaliar o estado de saúde da população (McCartney et al, 2013;Whitehead, 1991;New Zealand, 1998). A partir destas constatações, na década de 1980, a equidade em saúde foi defi nida como a primeira de 38 metas dos países membros da Região Europeia da Organização Mundial da Saúde (Whitehead, 1990) e deu origem a um "grupo de estudos" desenvolvido para atingir esta meta e enfrentar os desafi os das desigualdades em saúde.…”

Section: Equidade Em Saúde E Desenvolvimento Humanounclassified

Da economia tradicional do bem-estar à Abordagem das Capacitações e a importância da equidade em saúde para o desenvolvimento humano

2017

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Resumo Dada a importância de ampliar a visão da Economia fundamentada na maximização das utilidades e na renda dos países, o presente artigo objetiva incorporar o conceito de equidade em AbstractGiven the importance of broadening the vision of economy based on the maximization of utility and income, this article aims at incorporating the concept of equity in health and its importance in the economic discussion on human development, through a literature trajectory that begins in the traditional welfare theory and arrives at the Capabilities Approach. The association of economics, through the Capabilities Approach, and the area of public health, via discussion of the social determinants of health, allows this work to contribute to the defi nition of important concepts for studies on equity in health. The conclusion is that the multidimensionality present in concepts of human development and equity in health allows for a rich discussion in terms of assessment of living standards in economics.Keywords human development; health equity; the capability approach; economics of welfare; Amartya Sen.JEL Codes B59; O15; I15.

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“…However, evidence is growing in the literature that this assumption might be, at least partly, incorrect (Mazumder 2008;Clark and Royer 2013;Fletcher 2015). The association between health and education may partly be explained by confounding factors such as cognitive ability and parental background that affect both education choices and health (McCartney et al 2013). Lower cognitive ability as measured by standardized IQ tests is related to adult health (Gottfredson 2004;Deary 2008; and increased mortality (Batty and David 2004;Calvin et al 2011;).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Education, cognitive ability, and cause-specific mortality: A structural approach

2018

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E S Education, Cognitive Ability and Cause-SpecificIZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author. Education is negatively associated with mortality for most major causes of death. The literature ignores that cause-specific hazard rates are interdependent and that education and mortality both depend on cognitive ability. We analyze the education-mortality gradient at ages 18-63 using Swedish register data. We focus on months lost due to a specific cause of death which solves the interdependence problem, and use a structural model that derives cognitive ability from military conscription IQ scores. We derive the educational gains in months lost and the selection effects for each cause of death, and quantify the selection contribution of observed characteristics and unobserved cognitive ability. In a standard Cox model that controls for observed IQ, primary education was associated with 6 months lost when compared to secondary education. In a structural model that accounts for cognitive ability the difference was 43% larger. In addition, the largest educational gains were achieved for the lowest education group in the reduction of external cause mortality. The educational gains in cardiovascular mortality was small, mainly due to large selection effects. These results suggest that educational differences in cause specific mortality may be biased by conventional Cox regression analyses.JEL Classification: C41, C32, I14, I24

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What (or who) causes health inequalities: Theories, evidence and implications?

Cited by 141 publications

References 58 publications

Increasing inequality in age of death at shared levels of life expectancy: A comparative study of Scotland and England and Wales

Increasing inequality in age of death at shared levels of life expectancy: A comparative study of Scotland and England and Wales

Da economia tradicional do bem-estar à Abordagem das Capacitações e a importância da equidade em saúde para o desenvolvimento humano

Education, cognitive ability, and cause-specific mortality: A structural approach

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