Does Income Inequality Affect Health Status?
The main question that is addressed in the article “Income inequality and health status: role of institutions quality” written by Alassane Drabo is ‘Does the impact of income inequality on health status change when the quality of health institution varies?’. Specifically, will the increase or decrease in quality of a health institution such as as a hospital increase or decrease the impact of income inequalities on the health status of an area. Although this answer may be obvious, this question needs to be answered using empirical data which is provided in this paper. There is a lot of policy relevance that circles this question because although the main focus is to find weather or not income inequalities affect health status, it is important
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Although the answer may seem simple, there are many external variables that can affect the outcomes of this question. In this paper the main questions that were asked are ‘Does income inequality have an effect on overall health status of an area/individual?’ and ‘Are there other factors that may affect levels of income that in turn affect health status?’. Every article that was used in this study came to the same overall conclusion but the approach was really different. The first article looked at the impact of income inequality on health status in low to middle class areas. The second article looked at the impact of income inequalities in a more developed region which is North America. Finally, the third article studied if the impact of income inequalities on health status changed when the quality of health institutions was taken into account. Although every method and study within these three articles were different there were some repetitive variables such as the Gini coefficient that was used in all three studies. Accordingly, every article answered the same general question. All of the articles specified that income inequalities are negatively correlated with health status. To simplify, areas with lower income patterns tended to have a lower health status then the areas with a lot of income. Considering that the sample size across all three studies was quite large, we can conclude that the result is non-bias and significant. To answer the secondary question ‘Are there other factors that may affect levels of income that in turn affect health status?’, the second and third article was used. One of the articles concluded that the impact on health status is not restricted by income inequalities. Other variables that can alter the impacts on health status are GDP/capita within a country and the level of
Although the answer may seem simple, there are many external variables that can affect the outcomes of this question. In this paper the main questions that were asked are ‘Does income inequality have an effect on overall health status of an area/individual?’ and ‘Are there other factors that may affect levels of income that in turn affect health status?’. Every article that was used in this study came to the same overall conclusion but the approach was really different. The first article looked at the impact of income inequality on health status in low to middle class areas. The second article looked at the impact of income inequalities in a more developed region which is North America. Finally, the third article studied if the impact of income inequalities on health status changed when the quality of health institutions was taken into account. Although every method and study within these three articles were different there were some repetitive variables such as the Gini coefficient that was used in all three studies. Accordingly, every article answered the same general question. All of the articles specified that income inequalities are negatively correlated with health status. To simplify, areas with lower income patterns tended to have a lower health status then the areas with a lot of income. Considering that the sample size across all three studies was quite large, we can conclude that the result is non-bias and significant. To answer the secondary question ‘Are there other factors that may affect levels of income that in turn affect health status?’, the second and third article was used. One of the articles concluded that the impact on health status is not restricted by income inequalities. Other variables that can alter the impacts on health status are GDP/capita within a country and the level of