Health, wealth, and inequality: A contribution to the debate about the relationship between inequality and health

Historical Methods

Volumn 42, Issue 2, 2009, Pages 43-56

  Carson, Scott ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MUNICH   (Germany)

Author keywords

Inequality; Insolation; Stature; Vitamin D; Wealth

Indexed keywords

HEALTH STATUS; INSOLATION; NINETEENTH CENTURY; POPULATION DENSITY; SOCIAL STATUS; URBANIZATION; VITAMIN;

MIDWEST; NORTH AMERICA; UNITED STATES;

EID: 68049137767     PISSN: 01615440     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.3200/HMTS.42.2.43-56     Document Type: Article

References (58)

1. Atack, J., and F. Bateman. 1981. "The egalitarian ideal" and the distribution of wealth in the northern agricultural community: A backward look. Review of Economics and Statistics 63:124-29.
2. Bodenhorn, H. 1999. A troublesome caste: Height and nutrition of antebellum Virginia's rural free Blacks. Journal of Economic History. 59:972-96.
3. Bogin, B. 1991. Measurement of growth variability and environmental quality in Guatemalan children. Annals of Human Biology 18:285-94.
4. Carson, S. A. 2008. The effect of geography and vitamin D on African American stature in the nineteenth century: Evidence from prison records. Journal of Economic History 68:812-31.
5. Costa, D. 1993. Height, wealth and disease among the native-born in the rural antebellum North. Social Science History Association 17:355-83.
6. Cuff, T. 2005. The hidden cost of economic development: The biological standard of living in antebellum Pennsylvania. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
7. Deaton, A. 2002. Health, inequality and economic development. Journal of Economic Literature 41:113-58.
8. Easterlin, R. 1971. Regional income trends, 1840-1950. In The reinterpretation of American economic history, ed. R. W. Fogel and S. Engerman, 38-53. New York: Harper & Row.
9. Eveleth, P. B., and J. M. Tanner. 1990. Worldwide variation in human growth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
10. Fogel, R., S. Engerman, J. Trussell, R. Floud, C. Pope, and L. Wimmer. 1978. The economics of mortality in North America, 1650-1910: A description of a research project. Historical Methods 11:75-108.
11. Ginsburg, E., G. Livshits, K. Yakovenko, and E. Kobyliansky. 1998. Major gene control of human body height, weight and BMI in five ethnically different populations. Annals of Human Genetics 62:307-22.
12. Granvelle, H. 1998. How much of the relationship between population mortality and unequal distribution of income is a statistical artifact? British Medical Journal 316:382-85.
13. Holick, M. F. 1995. Environmental factors that influence the cutaneous production of vitamin D. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 61:638S-45S.
14. -. 2004. Vitamin D: Importance in the prevention of cancers, type 1 diabetes, heart disease and osteroporosis. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 79:362-71.
15. -. 2007. Vitamin D deficiency. New England Journal of Medicine 357:266-81.
16. 3 photosynthesis in men: Skin pigment is not an essential regulator. Science 211:590-93.
17. IPUMS. See Ruggles et al. 2004.
18. Islam, D. T., W. J. Gauderman, W. Cozen, T. Mack. 2007. Childhood sun exposure influences risk of multiple sclerosis in monozygotic twins. Neurology 69:381-88.
19. Kearl, J. R., C. L. Pope, and L. T. Wimmer. 1981. Household wealth in a settlement economy: Utah, 1850-1870. Journal of Economic History 40:477-96.
20. Komlos, J. 1987. The height and weight of West Point cadets: Dietary change in antebellum America. Journal of Economic History 47:897-927.
21. -. 1992. Toward an anthropometric history of African-Americans:
22. The case of the free Blacks in antebellum. Maryland. In Strategic factors in nineteenth-century American economic history: A volume to honor Robert W. Fogel, ed. C. Goldin and H. Rockoff, 297-329. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
23. -. 1998. Shrinking in a growing economy? The mystery of physical stature during the Industrial Revolution. Journal of Economic History 58:779-802.
24. Komlos, J., and J. Baten. 2004. Anthropometric research and the development of social science history. Social Science History 28:191-210.
25. Komlos, J., and P. Coclanis. 1997. On the puzzling cycle in the biological standard of living: The case of antebellum Georgia. Explorations in Economic History 34:433-59.
26. Komlos, J., and B. Lauderdale. 2005. Spatial correlates of U.S. heights and body mass indexes, 2002. Journal of Biosocial Science 39:59-78.
27. Le Roy Ladurie, E. 1979. The conscripts of 1968: A study of the correlation between geographical mobility, delinquency and physical, stature and other aspects of the situation of the young Frenchman called to do military service that year. In The Territory of the Historian, ed. B. Reynolds, and S. Reynolds, 33-60. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
28. Liu, Y.-Z., R.-H. Xu, H. Shen, H. Deng, Y.-J. Liu, L.-J. Zhao, V. Dvornyk, T. Conway, J.-L. Li, Q.-Y. Huang, K. M. Davies, R. R. Recker, and H.W. Deng. 2003. Confirmation linkage study in support of the X chromosome harbouring an ATL underlying human height variation. Journal of Medical Genetics 40:825-3.1.
29. Loomis, W. F. 1967. Skin-pigment regulation of vitamin-D biosynthesis in man: Variation in solar ultraviolet at different latitudes may have caused racial differentiation in May. Science 157:501-6.
30. Lynch, J. W., G. Kaplan, E. R. Pamuk, R. D. Cohen, K. E. Heck, J. L. Balfour, and I. H. Yen. 1998. Income inequality and mortality in metropolitan areas of the United States. American Journal of Public Health 88:1074-80.
31. Margo, R., and R. Steckel. 1982. The height of American slaves: New evidence on nutrition and health. Social Science History 6:516-38.
32. -. 1983. Heights of native born northern whites during the antebellum period. Journal of Economic History 43:167-74.
33. -. 1992. The nutrition and health of slaves and antebellum Southern whites. In Without consent or contract: Conditions of slave life and the transition to freedom, technical papers, volume 2, ed. R. W. Fogel and S. L. Engerman, 508-21. New York: Norton.
34. Nesby-O'Dell, S., K. S. Scanlon, M. E. Cogswell, C. Gillesie, B. W. Hollis, A. Looker, C. Allen, C. Doughertly, E. Gunter, and B. Bowman. 2002. Hypovitaminosis D prevalence and determinants among AfricanAmerican and white woman of reproductive age: Third national health and nutrition examination survey, 1988-1994. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 76:1.87-92.
35. Norman, A. 1998. Sunlight, season, skin pigmentation, vitamin D and 25-hydroxy vatamin D: Integral components of the vitamin D endocrine system. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 67:1108-10.
36. Nyström-Peck, M., and O. Lundberg. 1995. Short stature as an effect and social conditions in childhood. Social Science Medicine 41:733-38.
37. Pope, C. 1989. Households on the American frontier: The distribution of income and wealth in Utah, 1850-1900. In Markets in history, ed. D. Galenson, 148-89. New York: Cambridge University Press.
38. Rees, R., J. Komlos, N. Long, and U. Woitek. 2003. Optimal food allocation in a slave economy. Journal of Population Economics 16:21-36.
39. Riggs, P. 1994. The standard of living in Scotland, 1800-1850. In Stature, living standards, and economic development: Essays in anthropometric history, ed. J. Komlos, 60-75. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
40. Ruggles, S., M. Sobek, T. Alexander, C. A. Fitch, R. Goeken, P. K. Hall, M. King, and C. Ronnander. 2004. Integrated Public Use Microdata Series: Version 3.0 [Machine-readable database]. Minneapolis: Minnesota Population Center [producer and distributor].
41. Sokoloff, K. L., and G. Villaflor. 1982. The early achievement of modern stature in America. Social Science History 6:453-81.
42. Soltow, L. 1975. Men and wealth in the United States, 1850-1870. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
43. Steckel, R. 1979. Slave height profiles from coastwise manifests. Explorations in Economic History 16:363-80.
44. -. 1983. Height and per capita income. Historical Methods 16:1-7. Steckel, R. H. 1992. Work, disease, and diet in the health and morality of American slaves. In Without consent or contract: Conditions of the slave life and the transition to freedom, technical papers, volume 2, ed. R. W. Fogel and S. E. Engerman, 489-507. New York: Norton.
45. -. 1995. Stature and the standard of living. Journal of Economic Literature 33:1903-40.
46. -. 2005. Health and nutrition in the pre-industrial, era: Insights for a millennium, of average heights in northern Europe. In Living standards in the past: New perspectives on well-being in Asia and Europe, ed. R. C. Allen, T. Bengtsson, and M. Dribe, 227-53. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
47. Steckel, R. H., and D. Haurin. 1994. Health and nutrition in the American Midwest: Evidence from the height of Ohio National Guardsmen, 1850-1910. In Stature, living standards, and economic development: Essays in anthropometric history, ed. J. Komlos, 11.7-28. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
48. Subramanian, S. V., and I. Kawachi. 2004. Income inequality and health: What have we learned so far? Epidemiological Reviews 26:78-91.
49. Sunder, M. 2004. The height of Tennessee convicts: Another piece of the antebellum, puzzle. Economics and Human Biology 2:75-86.
50. Tanner, J. M. 1977. Human growth and constitution. In Human biology: An introduction to human evolution, variation, growth and ecology, 2nd ed., ed. G. A. Harrison, J. S. Weiner, J. M. Tanner, and N. A. Barnicot, 301.-84. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
51. Uitterlinden, A. G., Y Fang, J. B. J. van Meurs, H. A. P. Pols, J. P. T. M. van Leeuwen. 2004. Genetic and biology of vitamin D receptor polymorphisms. Gene 338:1.43-56.
52. Wannamethee, S., G. P. Whincup, G. Shaper, and M. Walker. 1996. Influence of father's social class on cardiovascular disease in middle-aged men. Lancet 348:1259-63.
53. Weisberg, P., K. Scanlon, R. Li, and M. E. Cogswell. 2004. Nutritional rickets among children in the United States: Review of cases reported between 1986 and 2003. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 80: 1697S-1705S.
54. Wilkinson, R. G. 1996. Unhealthy societies: The afflictions of inequality. New York: Routledge.
55. Wilkinson, R. G., and K. E. Pickett. 2006. Income inequality and population health: A review and explanation of the evidence. Social Science & Medicine 62:1768-84.
56. Wooldridge, J. 2002. Economic analysis of cross section and panel data. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
57. -. 2003. Introductory econometrics: A modern approach, 2nd ed. Cincinnati., OH: South-Western College Pub.
58. Xiong, D.-H., F.-H. Xu, P.-Y. Liu, H. Shen, J.-R. Long, L. Elze, R. R. Recker and H.-W. Deng. 2005. Vitamin D receptor gene polymorphisms are linked to and associated with adult height. Journal of Medical Genetics 42:228-34.