Study links income inequality with poor health
SUE BAILEY
OTTAWA (CP) - The healthiest people aren t found in the
richest countries but in those with the smallest gaps
between rich and poor, says a new book.
"Researchers are now finding that, in the developed world,
it s not the richest countries which have the best health
but the most egalitarian," writes Toronto economic
consultant Monica Townson in Health and Wealth: How Social
and Economic Factors Affect Our Well Being.
The book, funded by Health Canada, was scheduled for release
Wednesday by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
It examines how health has declined in countries where
social inequality grew unchecked.
For example, policies introduced by Britain s former prime
minister, Margaret Thatcher, drastically widened income
inequality, Townson said in an interview.
"As a result, in some areas of the country, people s life
expectancy dropped, which I think is pretty dramatic
evidence that this is a key issue we need to think about."
Townson raises red flags for Canada and points out that some
of its poorest citizens, Aboriginal Peoples, live seven
years less on average than non-natives.
"It is evident that Canada has not yet adopted strategies
for improving population health by addressing socio-economic
conditions," Townson writes. "About 1.5 million children, or
21 per cent of all Canada s children, now live in low-income
families. That s 47 per cent more than in 1989."
Support for the poor and unemployed has fallen in that time,
while social and economic systems are increasingly
entrenched and hard to challenge, Townson said.
Tax breaks and transfer payments that used to stabilize the
gap between rich and poor are now gone, she added.
Canada, like many other countries, has moved from its social
roots of collective responsibility toward a
take-care-of-yourself attitude.
Economic and social policies that more equally distribute
wealth are needed but Canada is moving in the wrong
direction, she says.
She also cited government efforts to develop a needs-based
measure of poverty as an alternative to Statistics Canada s
low-income cutoffs.
"Policy-makers concerned about population health . . .
cannot make the problem of poverty go away by simply
redefining it . . . so there are no poor people left."
Jean-Pierre Voyer of Human Resources Development Canada said
that s not Ottawa s intention. "It s no attempt to redefine
poverty by any means. We don t have an official definition
of poverty in Canada."
Measuring fundamental needs - the basics required for a
reasonable quality of life - is simply another way to assess
how poor people live, he said.
Change, if it comes in time, will happen through social and
economic policies that are more compassionate to the poor,
Townson said.
© The Canadian Press, 1999
Copyright © 1999 Southam Inc. All rights reserved.
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Canalising a river
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These are instances of fruitful criticism
And at the same time instances of art.
-Bertolt Brecht
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Dennis Raphael, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and Associate Director,
Masters of Health Science Program in Health Promotion
Department of Public Health Sciences
Graduate Department of Community Health
University of Toronto
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Toronto, Ontario, CANADA M5S 1A8
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