ABST: BMJ: Relation between income inequality and mortality in Canada and USA

[janet paterson <janet313@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Relation between income inequality and mortality in Canada and in the United 
States:
cross sectional assessment using census data and vital statistics

Objective: To compare the relation between mortality and income inequality in 
Canada with that in the United States.

Design: The degree of income inequality, defined as the percentage of total 
household income received by the less well off 50% of households, was 
calculated and these measures were examined in relation to all cause mortality, 
grouped by and adjusted for age.

Setting: The 10 Canadian provinces, the 50 US states, and 53 Canadian and 282 
US metropolitan areas.

Results: Canadian provinces and metropolitan areas generally had both lower 
income inequality and lower mortality than US states and metropolitan areas.

In age grouped regression models that combined Canadian and US metropolitan 
areas, income inequality was a significant explanatory variable for all age 
groupings except for elderly people.

The effect was largest for working age populations, in which a hypothetical 1% 
increase in the share of income to the poorer half of households would reduce 
mortality by 21 deaths per 100 000.

Within Canada, however, income inequality was not significantly associated with 
mortality.

Conclusions: Canada seems to counter the increasingly noted association at the 
societal level between income inequality and mortality.

The lack of a significant association between income inequality and mortality 
in Canada may indicate that the effects of income inequality on health are not 
automatic and may be blunted by the different ways in which social and economic 
resources are distributed in Canada and in the United States.


BMJ 2000;320:898-902 ( 1 April )
NA Ross, MC Wolfson, JM Berthelot
Statistics Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0T6 Canada
JR Dunn
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z3 Canada
GA Kaplan, JW Lynch
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 48109-2029 USA
<rossnan@xxxxxxxxxx>
<>

janet paterson
53 now / 41 dx / 37 onset
a new voice: 
613 256 8340 PO Box 171 Almonte Ontario Canada K0A 1A0