Income inequality and the resulting health effects

Income inequality and the resulting health effects. Income inequality is a global issue with its rising records since the recorded time. World concentration of wealth in few hands is on the increase. According to the Human Development report of 1996, out of the $23 trillion global gross domestic product, $18 trillion accrued to the industrialized countries. Developing countries are the home to 80% of the world’s population and had $5 trillion in the gross domestic share. The poorest 20% of the people experienced a decline of the global income from 2.3% to 1.4% in a thirty-year period. Shocking statistics apply to the United States where despite being the richest country in the world, there is a huge disparity between the poor and the rich in income distribution. The poorest 20% of the population shared 4% of the aggregate income while richest 20% had a share of 43.8% of the gross income in 1967. The inequality grew to 3.7% of the share for the bottom 20% and 49.0% for the top 20%. There are significant effects of the income disparities to the health of the affected persons (Kawachi et al. 1492).Various past studies have studied the relation between wealth gap and health status of the individuals (Wanda, Higuchi & Smith 2015). Though there is compelling evidence of the existence of the relation between chronic illnesses and socioeconomic position of individuals in the society, its understanding is not satisfactory (Brown and Arleen 63-77).
Health and income inequality
Nu…