Widening socioeconomic inequalities in US life expectancy, 1980–2000

Singh, Gopal K.; Siahpush, Mohammad

doi:10.1093/ije/dyl083

Cited by 318 publications

(305 citation statements)

References 15 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

274

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Although studies on this issue are rare in the United States, 36 a recent analysis demonstrated increasing disparity in life expectancy between rich and poor Americans. 37 Our comparison of white adults from the United Kingdom and United States revealed a sex difference. American males had greater waist circumference than British men, whether or not adjusted for hip or thigh girth.…”

mentioning

confidence: 81%

Body shape in American and British adults: between-country and inter-ethnic comparisons

Wells¹,

Cole

Bruner³

et al. 2007

Int J Obes

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background: Recent studies indicate differences between British and American white adults, and between income and ethnic groups within the United States, in the population distribution of lifestyle diseases. Differential prevalence of obesity has been suggested as a contributing factor; however, the conventional approach to categorizing obesity, body mass index, is confounded by ethnic variability in physique. Objective: To compare indices of shape between white British and American adults, and between white, African and Hispanic American adults. Design: Analysis of two large National Sizing Surveys, using identical study design and three-dimensional (3D) body-scanning instrumentation, on adults aged 17 þ years from the UK (3907M and 4710F white), and from the USA (1744M and 3329F white, 709M and 1106F African and 639M and 839F Hispanic). Outcome measures: Weight, height, body circumferences. Results: In the United States, socio-economic status was associated with increasing height and decreasing waist girth in white and Hispanic, but not African Americans. Compared to white British, white Americans had larger weight and girths, especially waist girth in men. Relative to white Americans, African Americans had smaller relative waist girth, but larger thigh girth, whereas Hispanic Americans had larger relative waist girth. Conclusions: Body shape of white American adults differs from that of their UK counterparts. Within Americans, ethnic differences in body shape closely track reported differences in prevalence of the metabolic syndrome, implicating variability in central abdominal fat as a key contributing factor. 3D photonic scanning offers a novel approach for categorizing risk of the metabolic syndrome and monitoring treatment success.

show abstract

mentioning

confidence: 81%

Body shape in American and British adults: between-country and inter-ethnic comparisons

Wells¹,

Cole

Bruner³

et al. 2007

Int J Obes

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…She finds that the top half of the average relative earnings distribution experienced much faster improvements in life expectancy than the bottom half did. Similarly, Singh and Siahpush (2006) conclude that the 2.8 years gap in life expectancy between the top and bottom decile deprivation index groups in the U.S. population in 1980-82 had widened to 4.5 years in 2000. In the paper closest to ours, Tarkiainen, Martikainen, Laaksonen, and Valkonen (2012) show that differences in mortality across household disposable income groups have widened dramatically in Finland between 1988 and 2007.…”

Section: Related Literaturementioning

confidence: 93%

Trends in Life Expectancy by Income and the Role of Specific Causes of Death

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study explores how life expectancy at age 35 has evolved across the income distribution in Sweden over time. We examine individual income for men 1970–2007 and family income for both men and women 1980–2007. During this period, income inequality increased in most western countries, but especially so in Sweden. Drawing on a large sample of the Swedish population, our results show that the gap in life expectancy between the richest and poorest fifths of the income distribution also increased. This was the case both for individual and family income. The increase was larger for men than for women, but the only group with stagnant life expectancy at age 35 was women in the lowest income quintile group. Between 1986 and 2007, the difference between the lowest and highest family income quintiles increased by about one year for women and by almost two years for men. The causes of death that most significantly contributed to the increased disparities among women were circulatory and respiratory diseases. For men, circulatory disease mortality alone caused most of the increased disparities.

show abstract

“…The health conditions of poorer population segments tend to be worse than those of richer population segmentsfor economic reasons such as spending on health care and/or for reasons of social or psychic deprivation. There is evidence to this effect from selected case studies, typically for high-income countries, including the well-known Whitehall studies in the United Kingdom (see, e.g., Marmot 2003;Anderson and Marmot 2012) and for the United States (Singh and Siahpush 2006). Comparable data do not exist for a panel analysis.…”

Section: Data and Preliminary Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

Income Inequality and Health: Evidence from Developed and Developing Countries

Herzer

Nunnenkamp

2015

Economics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We assess the effect of income inequality on life expectancy by performing separate estimations for developed and developing countries. Our empirical analysis challenges the widely held view that inequality matters more for health in richer countries than for health in poorer countries. Employing panel cointegration and conventional panel regressions, we find that income inequality slightly increases life expectancy in developed countries. By contrast, the effect on life expectancy is significantly negative in developing countries. Even though the quantitative effects are small, the contrast between the two country groups proves to be robust to modifications in measurement, specification and methodological choices. Nunnenkamp (2015). Income Inequality and Health: Evidence from Developed and Developing Countries. Economics: The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal, 9 (2015-4): 1-57. http:// dx.doi.org/10.5018/economics-ejournal.ja. www.economics-ejournal.org 2 JEL I14 C23 IntroductionIncome disparities have widened in various developed and developing countries during the process of economic globalization. Critics have called for redistributive policy interventions, not only for reasons of fairness but also to avoid economic and social costs of wide income gaps. Impaired health could add considerably to such costs. Pickett (2006: 1768) conclude from their comprehensive review of the literature that the large majority of more than 150 empirical studies suggest that "health is less good in societies where income differences are bigger." 1 In particular, this applies to international cross-country studies. Moreover, the literature suggests that the case for health-related redistribution is particularly strong for developed countries. According to Wilkinson (1996: 4), the distribution of income is "one of the most powerful influences on the health of whole populations in the developed world to have come to light." 2 Lynch et al. (1998Lynch et al. ( : 1074 reckoned that the loss of life from income inequality in the United States "is comparable to the combined loss of life from lung cancer, diabetes, motor vehicle crashes, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, suicide, and homicide in 1995." The so-called Whitehall studies on British civil servants showed "that, even among people who are not poor, there is a social gradient in mortality that runs from the bottom to the top of society" (Marmot 2003: S10). 3 More recently, the meta analysis of Kondo et al. (2009) reveals a modest adverse effect of income inequality on health. 4 Zheng (2012) finds that, while income inequality did not have an instantaneous effect on mortality risk in the United States, long-term _________________________ 1 See also Lynch et al. (2004) who review almost 100 studies addressing the question of whether more unequal societies are less healthy. Informative reviews of the relevant literature are also presented by Judge et al. (1998), Wagstaff and van Doorslaer (2000), Deaton (2003), and Subramanian and Kawachi (2004). 2 I...

show abstract

Widening socioeconomic inequalities in US life expectancy, 1980–2000

Abstract: Between 1980 and 2000, those in higher socioeconomic groups experienced larger gains in life expectancy than those in more-deprived groups, contributing to the widening gap.

Cited by 318 publications

References 15 publications

Body shape in American and British adults: between-country and inter-ethnic comparisons

Body shape in American and British adults: between-country and inter-ethnic comparisons

Trends in Life Expectancy by Income and the Role of Specific Causes of Death

Income Inequality and Health: Evidence from Developed and Developing Countries

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About