Godoy Ricardo A, Reyes-García Victoria, McDade Thomas, Huanca Tomás, Leonard William R, Tanner Susan, Vadez Vincent
Heller School for Social Policy and Management Waltham, MA, USA.
Soc Sci Med. 2006 Jul;63(2):359-72. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2006.01.021. Epub 2006 Mar 7.
Researchers have found a positive association between income inequality and poor individual health. To explain the link, researchers have hypothesized that income inequality erodes community social capital, which unleashes negative emotions, stress, and stress behaviors that hurt health. Few studies have tested the hypothesized path. Here we estimate the association between (a) village income inequality and social capital, and (b) three distinct negative emotions (anger, fear, sadness) and one stress behavior (alcohol consumption). We use four quarters of panel data (2002-2003) from 655 adults in 13 villages of a foraging-farming society in the Bolivian Amazon (Tsimane'). We found that: (1) village income inequality was associated with more negative emotions but with less alcohol consumption, (2) social capital always bore a negative association with outcomes, and (3) results held up after introducing many changes to the main model. We conclude that village income inequality probably affects negative emotions and stress behaviors through other paths besides social capital because we conditioned for social capital. One such path is an innate dislike of inequality, which might have pre-human origins. Our prior research with the Tsimane' suggests that village income inequality bore an insignificant association with individual health. Therefore, village income inequality probably affects negative emotions and stress behaviors before undermining health.
研究人员发现收入不平等与个人健康状况不佳之间存在正相关关系。为了解释这种联系，研究人员推测，收入不平等会侵蚀社区社会资本，从而引发伤害健康的负面情绪、压力和压力行为。很少有研究检验过这种假设路径。在此，我们估计了（a）村庄收入不平等与社会资本之间的关联，以及（b）三种不同的负面情绪（愤怒、恐惧、悲伤）和一种压力行为（饮酒）之间的关联。我们使用了来自玻利维亚亚马逊地区一个觅食 - 农耕社会（齐玛内人）13个村庄的655名成年人的四个季度的面板数据（2002 - 2003年）。我们发现：（1）村庄收入不平等与更多的负面情绪相关，但与较少的饮酒量相关；（2）社会资本总是与结果呈负相关；（3）在对主要模型进行多次调整后，结果依然成立。我们得出结论，村庄收入不平等可能通过社会资本之外的其他路径影响负面情绪和压力行为，因为我们对社会资本进行了控制。其中一条路径是对不平等的天生厌恶，这种厌恶可能起源于人类之前。我们之前对齐玛内人的研究表明，村庄收入不平等与个人健康之间的关联不显著。因此，村庄收入不平等可能在损害健康之前就影响负面情绪和压力行为。
