Beyond Health Care — Socioeconomic Status and Health

The article by Mackenbach et al. in this issue of the Journal 1 documents the extraordinary pervasiveness of socioeconomic inequalities in health as well as the varying magnitude of risks among countries. The compilation of data from western and eastern European countries on mortality, morbidity, smoking, and obesity in relation to socioeconomic status allows the authors to provide the broadest international portrait to date of the association between socioeconomic status and health. The link between socioeconomic disadvantage and poor health has been observed repeatedly,2 but until now we have lacked data that would permit us to make consistent comparisons of these . . .