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date: 18 August 2019

Abstract and Keywords

This article reviews the past two decades of research on the SES–health gradient, with a focus on how the mechanisms linking health to each of the dimensions of SES diverge and coincide. It discusses the concept of SES in four domains, namely, education, financial resources, rank, and race and ethnicity. It lays some basic facts about the SES-health gradient and gives a detailed description of each of these socioeconomic correlates of health. This article further examines education and financial resources and concentrates on conceptual approaches that view the individual in isolation. It focuses on the interplay between the individual and society and links between occupation and health. It then summarizes the evidence on racial and ethnic differences in health and provides some concluding remarks.

Keywords: health gradient, socioeconomic, financial resources, individual, society

David M. Cutler

David M. Cutler is the Otto Eckstein Professor of Applied Economics in the Department of Economics and Kennedy School of Government. Cutler's work in health economics and public economics has earned him significant academic and public acclaim. Cutler is the author of Your Money or Your Life: Strong Medicine for America's Health Care System, published by Oxford University Press. This book, and Professor Cutler's ideas, were the subject of a feature article in the New York Times Magazine, “The Quality Cure,” by Roger Lowenstein. Cutler is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a member of the Institute of Medicine.

Adriana Lleras-Muney

Adriana Lleras-Muney is an associate professor in the Economics Department at UCLA and a research associate of the NBER. She received her Ph.D. from Columbia University and was an assistant professor at Princeton University. Her research examines the relationships between socioeconomic status and health and the effect of disease on economic development.

Tom Vogl

Tom Vogl is a Ph. D. Candidate in Economics at Harvard University and a doctoral fellow of the Multidisciplinary Program on Inequality and Social Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.

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