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International Journal of Epidemiology 2002;31:543-546
© International Epidemiological Association 2002

Reprints and Reflections

Commentary: Theory in the fabric of evidence on the health effects of inequalities in income distribution

Miquel Portaa,b, Carme Borrellc and José L Copeteb

a Institut Municipal d'Investigació Mèdica (IMIM-IMAS), Barcelona, Spain.
b Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
c Institut Municipal de Salut Pública (IMSP), Barcelona, Spain.

Prof. Miquel Porta, Institut Municipal d'Investigació Mèdica, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Carrer del Dr. Aiguader 80, E-08003 Barcelona, Spain. E-mail: mporta@imim.es

Theory comes first. Thus, Rodgers' second paragraph1 begins: ‘Theory: Let us suppose that at the individual level there is a relationship between income and life expectancy.’ Then Rodgers expresses his seemingly simple idea in a (slightly less) simple diagram. By drawing the graph, the scholar has left the pier of ‘pure’ concepts; but he is not yet sailing the open sea of quantitative analysis (where theoretical concepts are the guiding stars, of course). He further notes: ‘the relationship in Diagram 1 is defined for an individual.‘1 What about the empirical data? That is a bit like the breeze you need to fill the sails, isn’t it ... Well, the author realizes that ‘in practice, data for studying this type of relationship are available only at the aggregate level’. This—we might call it—’minor practical problem’ entails, he writes, ‘the need to formulate a relation between life expectancy at community or . . . [Full Text of this Article]

The theories and mechanistic findings of Richard Wilkinson and others

Some criticisms: the ‘whys‘, ‘whats' and ‘hows'

1. Income inequality
2. Social cohesion
The trail left by Rodgers' paper in the academic literature

Questions we cannot answer

References


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