IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v36y1993i2p157-166.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Health and poverty: Past, present and prospects for the future

Author

Listed:
  • Najman, Jake M.

Abstract

Periodically the results of class comparisons in mortality rates have been reported. These reports have permitted comparisons since the earlier part of this century to the present period. The data thus available enables us to make some tentative predictions about the likely magnitude of class inequalities in mortality in the future. We consequently argue that: - --the concept of class should be abandoned in favour of a more direct measure of economic inequality which emphasises those living in poverty. - --despite overall declines in mortality for all socioeconomic groups, in the most recent period there has been an increase in the relative mortality disadvantage in some countries. - --this increase in mortality disadvantage is paralleled by an increase in the proportion of people, particularly children, living in poverty. Five groups constitute the bulk of those living in poverty and, of these, three (single mothers, the aged and the disabled) are likely to increase in numbers in the future, producing a likely increase in class-related mortality inequalities. Reducing these inequalities will depend upon welfare and education initiatives more than on any changes likely to be produced by the health system.

Suggested Citation

  • Najman, Jake M., 1993. "Health and poverty: Past, present and prospects for the future," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 157-166, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:36:y:1993:i:2:p:157-166
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0277-9536(93)90207-K
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Barbara Davis & Valerie Tarasuk, 1994. "Hunger in Canada," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 11(4), pages 50-57, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:36:y:1993:i:2:p:157-166. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.