Gini Index --> Re: Why U.S. health care expenditure and ranking on health care indicators are so different from Canada's

[Guest guest]

Thanks for reminding me, .

I think I actually posted a comment about wealth inequality and the

Gini Index last year.

It is an interesting topic -- like you said -- we may be doing all we

can and doing it right, it's just the disparity in wealth that impacts

the society the most.

Here is some info on the Gini index and graphs that show where US is --

like you said, since the 70's, the disparity in the US has grown.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_index

The Gini coefficient is a measure of statistical dispersion

most prominently used as a measure of inequality of income

distribution or inequality of wealth distribution.

It is defined as a ratio

with values between 0 and 1: A low Gini

coefficient indicates more

equal income or wealth distribution, while a high Gini coefficient

indicates more unequal distribution. 0 corresponds to perfect equality

(everyone having exactly the same income) and 1 corresponds to perfect

inequality (where one person has all the income, while everyone else

has zero income).

The Gini coefficient requires that no one have a

negative net income or wealth. Worldwide, Gini coefficients range from

approximately 0.232 in Denmark to 0.707 in Namibia

although not every country has been assessed.

The Gini index is the Gini coefficient expressed as a

percentage, thus Denmark's Gini index is 23.2% (Mathematically, this is

equal to the Gini coefficient of 0.232, but the percentage sign is

often omitted in the Gini index.)

The Gini coefficient was developed by the Italian statistician

Corrado

Gini and published in his 1912 paper "Variability and Mutability"

US income Gini indices over time

Gini indices for the United States

at various times, according to the US Census Bureau:

1929: 45.0 (estimated)

1947: 37.6 (estimated)

1967: 39.7 (first year reported)

1968: 38.6 (lowest index reported)

1970: 39.4

1980: 40.3

1990: 42.8

2000: 46.2

2005: 46.9

2006: 47.0 (highest index reported)

2007: 46.3 [3]

What's interesting is that the increase in the Dow kind of maps

out the increase in the disparity.

The Dow took off around the time the disparity took off.

I guess that is a case of the rich getting richer -- takes money to

make money.

Locke, MD

============================

Brady, MD wrote:

,

There is a

great documentary called, “In

sickness and in wealth” which came out a couple of years ago and I

remember the epidemiologist stating exactly the same thing about wealth

disparity.

He said that in the United States, the most

important factor in your health is your income. In fact,

there is almost a linear relationship between salary and life

expectancy. Some

of the reasons behind this are obvious—no insurance, no money for

co-pays, etc, some reasons are slightly more complex—crappy food is

much

cheaper than healthy food, higher proportion of low end grocery stores

and fast

food restaurants in poor areas, no safe areas to exercise, and some

reasons are

really complex—an apparent chronic cortisol

surge secondary to the stress of always being on guard (against getting

shot or

mugged, but also against losing you job, missing the bus and being late

for

work, etc). In this guy’s mind, and he has the statistics to back it

up, the

most important change we can make for the health of the nation has

nothing to

do with socialized medicine or better technology, but is having more

economically integrated housing. Get rid of the high poverty areas and

everything starts to get better.

By the way,

he also stated that the wealth

distribution in the US was most

equitable in 1976. Since then, the rich have gotten

richer and the poor have gotten poorer (and there has been an obesity

and

diabetic epidemic…hmmm). Fascinating to think that health may have a

lot

less to do with what we do than what politicians and contractors do.