How health connected to economics?

Answer 1

Human health is determined by a number of different factors, but a large number of them are economic. Although we tend to think of changes in human health--usually improvements--as being the result of changes in medical knowledge and technology, the role of medicine in advancing human health is actually very small. A number of large studies by WHO, the RAND corporation, and many epidemiological studies, have consistently found that the differences in health between individuals--that is, the answer to the question "Why are some people healthier than others?"--is determined primarily by four things: (1) post-seconday education, (2) personal income and wealth, (3) health behavior (following a health lifestyle, etc.), and (4) genetic inheritance. These four alone account for 85-90% of the variations in health status. The remaining 10% is shared by a variety of other influences, including the type of job a person holds, what type of neighborhood they live, and health services. Yes, the health care system accounts for only a fragment of 10% of health differences between people. For the purpose of simplicity, think of it as about 3%. To illustrate this, suppose you take two identical twins and give them the same resources in the big four categories mentioned above. They are twins, so have they same genes. Then let's suppose they both have Master's degrees, have roughly the same income, and generally follow what could be called a health lifestyle. Then suppose that Twin A has access to unlimited universal health care, and Twin B has to pay for all her health care, either out of her pocket or through a stingy insurance program with high deductibles and limited coverage. The access to health care is then the only main difference between these women. If you follow them over the course of their lives, the result is that you would see only a slight advantage in health for Twin A, the so-called 3% difference. As a quick conceptualization, think of it this way: Twin B has a few more sick days per year than Twin A, or gets colds that last one day longer than Twin A's. Those are just examples. The point is that the difference in health would be fairly small. This runs counter to what most people believe: first, that improvements in medical knowledge and technology are the main cause of improvements in human health, and second, that it is essential to an individual's health to have extensive access to health care. In fact, the reasons humans live longer and are so much healthier than they were a century ago (in most parts of the world) is that they are wealthier and have access to more resources of any kind overall, not just health care. To illustrate this again, imagine that the same twins, A and B, are as described above, except that Twin A (who has access to universal health care) never got any education beyond high school, and as a result has a lower income. You would immediately see a big difference in health status between the two women. Twin A would be more likely to smoke, would have less of a long-term focus on her individual health, and would hold jobs with higher stress and greater risk of injury, despite her increased access to health care. As I said before, we tend to think that we are heathier because of medical advances, but in fact the equation goes more in the opposite direction. As we get heallther and live longer due to our growing wealth, we tend to develop higher expectations about the quality of life and the kinds of services that should be available to us. We become more concerned about non-fatal illnesses that reduce the quality of life, such as depression and obesity, and less concerned about health risks faced by the world's poor, such as malnutrition, dehydration, and infections. I've answered this question mostly in terms of individual health and individual economics, but if you'd like more information I'd be happy to see if I can help. Cheers, Michael