The Society and Population Health Reader ─ Income Inequality and Health

A groundbreaking and controversial two-volume reader on the connections between social structure and public health. In recent years, a whole new field of inquiry on the connections between society and health has arisen from the work of leading social scientists and medical researchers around the world. This pioneering two-volume reader collects for the first time the substance of their main finding: that life expectancy, illness, and other health factors across the class spectrum are closely related to the structure of a given society, and that variations of health within a population are primarily related to socio-structural factors, including income inequality, educational differences, lack of opportunities, and racism. Volume I, Income Inequality and Health, reveals that societies with great income and social inequality, such as the United States and Great Britain, have far higher tolls of certain illnesses and far lower life-expectancy rates across all social classes than do more equitable societies, whether rich or poor. The contributors argue that the increasing gap between the rich and the poor in the United States has had dramatic health consequences for the entire American population, and that, given these findings, even a modest reduction in income inequality would yield a significant health improvement for all. Sure to provoke widespread debate and controversy, The Society and Population Health Reader brings to professional, academic, and general readers the most important research findings and dramatic implications for public policy of this fascinating new field. More