International Journal of Epidemiology 2003;32:663-670
© International Epidemiological Association 2003
Essay Review |
Rates and states: reflections on the health of nations
1 Department of Epidemiology, Center for Human Growth and Development, and Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, 109 Observatory Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2029, USA.
2 Department of Social Medicine, University of Bristol, Canynge Hall, Whiteladies Road, Bristol, BS8 2PR, UK.
The Health of Nations. Why Inequality is Harmful to Your Health. Kawachi I, Kennedy BP. New York: The New Press, 2002, pp. 232 (HB), $25.95. ISBN: 1 565 84582 X.
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Writing a book titled The Health of Nations1 is surely a daunting and ambitious task considering it is only one consonant removed from the popular title of Adam Smith’s famous Wealth of Nations.2 Nevertheless, Harvard social epidemiologists Ichiro Kawachi and Bruce Kennedy revel in the challenge and have managed to integrate a vast amount of information in an attempt to help us better understand why social inequality in its various forms can be damaging to health, happiness, and the quality of human existence. This book is primarily about the goals of economic development and how we should evaluate its successes and failures. In this sense the authors are onto something fundamentally important. Kawachi and Kennedy question whether Americans are happier or healthier as a result of all their accumulation and consumption of goods and services. They answer no. More snappily, they suggest that ‘chasing the American Dream can be
 |
Is population health collapsing? |
|---|
|
Expanding the explanatory framework for the determinants of population health |
|---|
|
The influence of life course processes at the individual and population levels |
|---|
|
Strengthening the evidence base for the importance of psychosocial factors in influencing population health |
|---|
|
The Roseto Effect—What are the lessons for population health? |
|---|
|
Conclusion |
|---|
CiteULike 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us What's this?
Related articles in Int. J. Epidemiol.:
- Nerves 1974/5
- Daniel Brand
Int. J. Epidemiol. 2003 32: 37.[Extract] [FREE Full Text] - The detection of gene–environment interaction for continuous traits: should we deal with measurement error by bigger studies or better measurement?
- MY Wong, NE Day, JA Luan, KP Chan, and NJ Wareham
Int. J. Epidemiol. 2003 32: 51-57.[Abstract] [FREE Full Text] - Relation of plasma folate and methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase C677T polymorphism to colorectal adenomas
- Tomomi Marugame, Emiko Tsuji, Chikako Kiyohara, Hiroyuki Eguchi, Takashi Oda, Koichi Shinchi, and Suminori Kono
Int. J. Epidemiol. 2003 32: 64-66.[Abstract] [FREE Full Text] - General or specific?
Int. J. Epidemiol. 2003 32: 331.[Extract] [FREE Full Text]
This article has been cited by other articles:
|
|
 |
|
  E. Regidor, E. Ronda, C. Pascual, D. Martinez, M. E. Calle, and V. Dominguez Decreasing Socioeconomic Inequalities and Increasing Health Inequalities in Spain: A Case Study Am J Public Health, January 1, 2006; 96(1): 102 - 108. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 Y.-H. Khang, J. W. Lynch, and G. A Kaplan Impact of economic crisis on cause-specific mortality in South Korea Int. J. Epidemiol., December 1, 2005; 34(6): 1291 - 1301. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
H. I. Kushner and C. E. Sterk The Limits of Social Capital: Durkheim, Suicide, and Social Cohesion Am J Public Health, July 1, 2005; 95(7): 1139 - 1143. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
J. Lynch The Political and Social Contexts of Health. Navarro V (ed). New York: Baywood, 2004, pp. 246, $40.00 (PB), ISBN: 0-89503-299-6 Int. J. Epidemiol., April 1, 2005; 34(2): 502 - 503. [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
C. C. Kelleher, J. Lynch, S. Harper, J. B. Tay, and G. Nolan Hurling Alone? How Social Capital Failed to Save the Irish From Cardiovascular Disease in the United States Am J Public Health, December 1, 2004; 94(12): 2162 - 2169. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 C. Muntaner, W. W. Eaton, R. Miech, and P. O'Campo Socioeconomic Position and Major Mental Disorders Epidemiol. Rev., July 1, 2004; 26(1): 53 - 62. [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 Y H Khang, J W Lynch, S Yun, and S I Lee Trends in socioeconomic health inequalities in Korea: use of mortality and morbidity measures J. Epidemiol. Community Health, April 1, 2004; 58(4): 308 - 314. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
J. Lynch, S. Harper, and G. Davey Smith Commentary: Plugging leaks and repelling boarders--where to next for the SS Income Inequality? Int. J. Epidemiol., December 1, 2003; 32(6): 1029 - 1036. [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
S. Subramanian and I. Kawachi Response: In defence of the income inequality hypothesis Int. J. Epidemiol., December 1, 2003; 32(6): 1037 - 1040. [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|