Center for Complexity and Biosystems and Center for Innovation for Well-Being And Environment, Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of Milan, Milan, Italy.
UOC Maxillo-Facial Surgery and Dentistry, Fondazione IRCCS Ca' Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, Milan, Italy.
Front Public Health. 2024 Aug 7;12:1421509. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1421509. eCollection 2024.
Socio-economic background is often an important determinant for health with low income households having higher exposure to risk factors and diminished access to healthcare and prevention, in a way that is specific to each country.
Here, we perform a comparative analysis of the relations between health and income inequality in two developed countries, USA and Italy, using longitudinal and cross-sectional data from surveys.
We show that the income class determines the incidence of chronic pathologies, associated risk-factors and psychiatric conditions, but find striking differences in health inequality between the two countries. We then focus our attention on a fraction of very disadvantaged households in the USA whose income in persistently at the bottom of the distribution over a span of 20 years and which is shown to display particularly dire health conditions. Low income people in the USA also display comorbidity patterns that are not found in higher income people, while in Italy income appears to be less relevant for comorbidity. Taken together our findings illustrate how differences in lifestyle and the healthcare systems affect health inequality.
社会经济背景通常是健康的一个重要决定因素，低收入家庭面临更高的风险因素暴露和医疗保健及预防机会减少，这种情况在每个国家都是特定的。
在这里，我们使用来自调查的纵向和横断面数据，对两个发达国家（美国和意大利）的健康与收入不平等之间的关系进行比较分析。
我们表明，收入阶层决定了慢性疾病、相关风险因素和精神疾病的发病率，但发现这两个国家的健康不平等存在显著差异。然后，我们将注意力集中在美国的一部分非常贫困的家庭上，他们的收入在 20 年的时间里一直处于分配的底部，并且显示出特别糟糕的健康状况。美国的低收入人群也表现出与高收入人群不同的合并症模式，而在意大利，收入对合并症的影响似乎较小。总的来说，我们的研究结果说明了生活方式和医疗保健系统的差异如何影响健康不平等。
