Effects Of Inequality On Health

The corrosive effects of inequality on health are strongly associated with poorer outcomes. As a matter of fact, the level of inequality in any given stratum of society may be more significant than the overall level of wealth for a society and its major health conditions.

In a book called ‘The spirit level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger’, epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett provide an overview based on medical and socio-logical research that links inequality to poor outcomes not only in health, but also in other social determinants such as education, crime rates and violence, social mobility. [2]

By becoming aware of that, Richard Wilkinson described how life expectancy varies throughout societies. The key point is that, among the developed countries, it is not the richest societies which have the best health, but those that have smallest income differences between rich and poor.

Assignment 2: Increasing access to healthcare

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The next relationship that needs to be considered is between income inequality and social dysfunction. When comparing more and less equal societies, as for example Sweden and the UK, there are connected features that add substantially to the issues of income inequality and social dysfunction. First, the differences in the prevalence of health and social problems are very large such as three-fold differences in rates of mental illness, three-fold differences in obesity and homicide rates. Second, greater equality would benefit a large majority of the population. [5]

The features discussed above are linked because those differences would not be easily produced if inequality affected only a minority of the population. Therefore, the benefits of greater equality are spread across society and are consistent with the fact that health inequalities are not distinctions between the health of the poor and the rest, but form a gradient right across society.