PEDIATRICS Vol. 95 No. 5 May 1995, pp. 631
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HEALTH AND RELATIVE INCOME

Health is affected by differences in relative income (differences between groups of people within the same society), not by the absolute level of average incomes for each society as a whole. This is confirmed by the surprisingly strong relationship between income distribution and mortality rates in developed countries.

The countries with the longest life expectancy are not the wealthiest but those with the smallest spread of incomes and the smallest proportion of the population in relative poverty.