Re: Income Inequality and Health

[Fred Guy <f_d_guy@xxxxxxxxx>]

"Brown, Martin - ARP (NCI)" wrote:

>
> 1]  All attempts a these kinds of ecological regression are not worth the
> effort.
> 2]  There is rationale for Deaton to substitute percent black for income
> inequality.
> 3]  Percent black is a proxy measure for something that really is important
> - but what is it??
>

I'd say (2). Doesn't racism have effects on health status (through
judgments
made in health care, and perhaps through other routes - surely I've read
of big
race-based differences in treatment for acute heart problems in the US)?
Racism
and race relations in the US do take distinctive forms, and that could
well
explain US exceptionalism on the [apparent] Wilkinson effect. As for
(3), if
percent black is knocking out direct measures of income inequality in
the
regression, then even if it were proxying for something else, that
'something
else' is knocking out income inequality, which doesn't suggest support
for the
Wilkinson effect even in the US case.

Fred

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