Economic opportunity: a determinant of health?

摘要

The economic circumstances into which an individual is born have been repeatedly shown to fundamentally shape health throughout their life. By contrast, surprisingly little research has been done into the inequality in an individual's opportunity to move out of those circumstances— particularly since these factors might be potentially modifiable. In The Lancet Public Health, Atheendar Venkataramani and colleagues1 provide a major contribution to the field. The traditional focus taken within much of the social mobility and health literature has been the comparison of health outcomes between those who move upwards, downwards, or remain unchanged along some dimension of social stratification—often social class or education in the UK, or income within the USA. Instead, Venkataramani and colleagues ask whether living in an area with equitable levels of economic opportunity benefits health.