Wealth and Health

February 19th, 2008 at 11:38 pm

The conventional wisdom is that richer people tend to live longer and poor people tend to die young because of their poverty. Its a sensible theory–rich people can afford better medicines, doctors, preventive medicine, and have more knowledge of emergency care options. But the reality is a little more complicated.

A new report from ONE partner Save the Children explores this issue as reported by the BBC. The full report is available here. The major finding is that “development” does not necessarily ensure low child morality, with India being a case in point.

This general relationship however is nothing new: data we have shown a complex relationship for decades with income strongly correlated with wealth up to around $5,000 income, but after this point little relationship (interestingly the same pattern exists for happiness surveys). After that point income inequality seems to be a more dominant factor with steep gradients of inequality paired with steep gradients in life expectancy. The U.S.’s best example is the D.C. metro area, where life expectancy jumps a couple decades as you move northwest from the inner-city southeast to the suburbs of Northern Virginia.

Fortunately, there are bills in both the House and the Senate, both named the Global Child Survival Act that would do more to address the fact that about 10 million little children die each year of preventable disease. And you can make a difference by writing to Congress to promote the passage of the bill at this crucial time.