FYI.  Barbara Krimgold


For Immediate Release                         Contact: Julie
McCarroll
Publication Date: September 1, 2002
212.629.4281


THE HEALTH OF NATIONS
Why Inequality is Harmful to Your Health

By Ichiro Kawachi and Bruce P. Kennedy


In this groundbreaking, highly accessible new work, Harvard professors
Ichiro Kawachi and Bruce P. Kennedy argue that economic inequality is not
only unconscionable, but is actually bad for our health. Packed with
shocking statistics, THE HEALTH OF NATIONS: Why Inequality is Harmful to
Your Health (The New Press; Publication Date: September 1, 2002; $25.95
Hardcover), demonstrates how the gap between the haves and have-nots in a
given society is directly linked to the health problems experienced within
that state. Remarkably, the United States and other wealthy countries with
high levels of social inequality actually have lower general health than do
more equitable societies, rich or poor. A recent New York Times article
illustrated an example of this phenomenon, revealing that racism is a major
cause of the health care disparities among Americans due to minorities'
lower quality of insurance, classic negative racial stereotypes held by
doctors, and a lack of minority doctors.  Indeed, certain indications of
general health-life expectancy, birth rates, etc.-are better in Costa Rica,
despite its very low GDP, because the distribution of resources is far more
equal than it is in the U.S.

Applying the kind of scrutiny to the United States that Amartya Sen has
devoted to developing countries, the authors examine relative poverty within
wealthy nations-focusing most closely on the United States-as well as among
nations.  Inequalities within developed countries, for example, are widening
as quickly as the gap in living standards between rich and poor countries,
as the authors illustrate with statistics such as these:





· In the mid 1960s, the income of America's top CEO was 39 times that of the
average production worker. In 1997, the CEO to worker income ratio was
254 to 1.
· Between 1977 and 1999, the incomes of poor families fell by 9%.  The
incomes of the wealthiest 1% rose by 115%.
· In 1820, the world's richest country made three times the income of the
world's poorest; by 1997, the richest country made over seventy-five times
more income than the poorest.
· Over one billion people across the world earn an income of one dollar a
day or less.

A comprehensive synthesis of years of research about the connections between
social structures and health, The Health of Nations is a must-read for
anyone concerned about the growing inequalities within the United States and
across the globe.


About the Authors:

Ichiro Kawachi is the director of the Harvard Center for Society and Health,
and an associate professor at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Bruce P. Kennedy is an assistant professor at the Harvard School of Public
Health.  Kawachi and Kennedy are recipients of the Robert Wood Johnson
Investigator Awards in Health Policy Research.


HEALTH OF NATIONS
Ichiro Kawachi and Bruce P. Kennedy
Publication Date: September 1, 2002
Hardcover, $25.95
ISBN: 1-56584-582-X
5½" x 8¼", 240 pages