AMERICA - Economic Inequality, Part-5 (Health)

"Inequality Hurts: The Unhealthy Side Effects of Economic Disparity" (Series Part-5) PBS Newshour 9/28/2011

(Series Part-1, Part-2, Part-3, Part-4, Part-6)

Excerpt

PAUL SOLMAN (Newshour): According to Marmot and colleagues, the stress of low status explains some otherwise puzzling statistics. The U.S. leads the world in health care spending, for example. Yet, in infant mortality, we rank 47, below Malta, Slovenia, Cuba.

In life expectancy, America is 50th, six years less than Macau. In what do we lead the world? Obesity. And given our incomes, we're well up there in economic inequality.

Richard Wilkinson suspects there's a connection.

RICHARD WILKINSON, "The Spirit Level": On lots of different measures of health, more unequal societies seem to do worse.

PAUL SOLMAN: Also a British epidemiologist, Wilkinson is the co-author of "The Spirit Level," which reports a strong correlation between inequality and poor health society-wide.

RICHARD WILKINSON: Societies with bigger income differences between rich and poor do worse on a whole range of measures. They have worse health. They have more violence. They have more drug problems. Standards of child well-being are worse.

PAUL SOLMAN: And not just a little bit worse, says Wilkinson -- sometimes, way worse.