Health Status and Economics

This work is concerned with the "social" determinants of health, how people's incomes, their education, and the characteristics of the societies in which they live, affect their health status and their life chances. It is also concerned with how the findings affect the way that we think about wellbeing and about policy towards health and poverty.

For the US, recent work has focused on the effects of income inequality on health, and on the finding that the racial composition of states and cities affects the mortality rates of the people who live there. I have also looked at the policy implications of the relationship between socioeconomic status and health. For developing countries, work on India and South Africa has looked at how we might measure wellbeing, taking into account economic and health status. The Udaipur Health Survey is one of my current research projects in India. The data collected from this survey, as well as full documentation, are publically available here.

More Information:
Angus Deaton's Full List of Working Papers and Publications
Research Program in Development Studies Working Papers
Center for Health and Wellbeing Working Papers

Papers on Health Status and Economics

The following is a list of recent papers and publications regarding Health Status and Economics. Here's access to a full list of Angus Deaton's working papers and publications.

Food and Nutrition in India: Facts and Interpretations - April 2008

Height, health, and inequality: the distribution of adult heights in India - American Economic Review,
May 2005
This paper explores the relationship between adult heights and the distribution of income across populations of individuals.

Health and Wellbeing in Udaipur and South Africa - Forthcoming, Developments in the Economics of
Aging, David Wise, editor, University of Chicago Press, 2006
Coauthored with Anne Case. A microlevel comparison of health and wellbeing between households in India and South Africa.

The Determinants of Mortality - Journal of Economic Perspectives, 20(3), pp. 97-120, Summer 2006
Coauthored with David Cutler and Adriana Lleras-Muney. A review of the determinants of mortality, historically, over space, and within countries. A follow-up of a mortality conference held at Princeton in July 2004.

Health and Wealth Among the Poor: India and South Africa Compared (with Anne Case)
American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings, May 2005 - Revised 4/05

Health in an Age of Globalization
Brookings Trade Forum, April 2004 - Revised 7/04

Health Care Delivery in Rural Rajasthan (with Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo)
Economic and Political Weekly, February 28, 2004, v. 39, iss. 9, pp. 944-949

Wealth, Health, and Health Services in Rural Rajasthan (with Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo)
American Economic Review, May 2004, v. 94, iss. 2, pp. 326-330

Broken Down by Work and Sex: How Our Health Declines (with Anne Case)
June 2003, NBER Working Paper: 9821; Revised 6/04

Consumption, Health, Gender, and Poverty (with Anne Case)

Policy Implications of the Gradient of Health and Wealth
Health Affairs, March/April 2002, v. 21, iss. 2, pp. 13-30

The Convoluted Story of International Studies of Inequality and Health
International Journal of Epidemiology, 2002, v. 31, pp. 546-549

Health Inequalities Across Space: Puzzles and Questions
Keynote vignette delivered to the meeting of the International Society for Equity in Health, Toronto, June 2002

Mortality, Inequality and Race in American Cities and States (with Darren Lubotsky); Addendum
Social Science and Medicine, v. 56, iss. 6, pp. 1139-1153

Mortality, Income and Income Inequality Over Time in Britain & the United States (with Christina Paxson)
October 2001, NBER Working Paper: 8534; in David Wise (ed.), Perspectives on the Economics of Aging University of Chicago Press for NBER, Chapter 6, pp. 247-280

Aging and Inequality in Income and Health (with Christina Paxson)
American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings, May 1998, v. 88, iss. 2, pp. 248-253

Health, Inequality, and Economic Development
Journal of Economic Literature, March 2003, v. 41, iss. 1, pp 113-158

Relative Deprivation, Inequality and Mortality
January 2001

Inequalities in Income and Inequalities in Health
in Finis Welch (ed.), The Causes and Consequences of Increasing Inequality, Chicago University Press for NBER, 2001, pp. 129-170

Mortality, Education, Income, and Inequality Among American Cohorts
in D. Wise (ed.), Themes in the Economics of Aging, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001