Status, health and inequality

Chris Dillow suggests that perhaps one’s perception of status has not much to do with one’s health. Yet he also suggests we should still pay attention to the affect of inequality on health. But a definitive study by Richard G Wilkinson shows that these two factors should be linked: how we perceive our status in terms of inequality vis a vis wider society is massively determinant of how healthy we perceive ourselves to be, and how healthy we actually are. The study shows that it is not absolute poverty that counts, but poverty in relation to the society in which one lives – that it is this status-related relative poverty that makes all the difference.

Chris Dillow suggests that perhaps one’s perception of status has not much to do with one’s health. Yet he also suggests we should still pay attention to the affect of inequality on health. But a definitive study by Richard G Wilkinson shows that these two factors should be linked: how we perceive our status in terms of inequality vis a vis wider society is massively determinant of how healthy we perceive ourselves to be, and how healthy we actually are. The study shows that it is not absolute poverty that counts, but poverty in relation to the society in which one lives – that it is this status-related relative poverty that makes all the difference.