Health and income inequality: a comparative analysis of USA and Italy

Introduction: 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.
Methods: 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.
Results and discussion: 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.