Are richer people healthier? If so, how strong is this relationship? Does it vary across countries?
That’s what an article says Kyriopoulos et al., 2024 The aim is to answer this question. They measure health and wealth using a “concentration index” (CI) which is calculated as follows:
The CI is calculated with reference to the concentration curve, which illustrates the cumulative percentage of a health status variable relative to the cumulative percentage of the population, with individuals ranked from the least wealthy to the wealthiest. In particular, the CI is twice the area between the concentration curve and the 45-degree equality line, with zero values reflecting the absence of socioeconomic inequality in health. Unlike the Gini index, the CI quantifies inequality in one variable (i.e. health) based on its ranking relative to another (i.e. the socioeconomic measure). A positive CI denotes that health is more concentrated among wealthier individuals, and higher values of the index reflect higher levels of inequality in favor of the wealthy.
The specific version of CI used comes from 2005 cabooseWealth is measured using non-housing wealth (although a sensitivity analysis uses total wealth including housing) and health is measured using self-reported health status on a 5-point scale (i.e. poor, fair, good, very good, excellent). To estimate the CI, they use data from the Health and Retirement Survey (HRS) in the US and the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) in Europe.
Using this approach, they found that:
…evidence of wealth-related inequalities in self-reported health status in several high-income countries, with the United States showing higher levels of inequality than its European counterparts. The magnitude of these wealth inequalities remained unchanged over the study period in all countries.
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