Introduction

Research on economic inequality is concerned with differences in incomes and wealth. Economic research on inequality casts its net more widely and is increasingly turning attention to differences in health. Google Scholar turns up 1,380 articles with ‘health’ and ‘inequality’ in the title, and a further 290 with ‘mortality’ and ‘inequality’, compared with 4,480 with ‘income’ and ‘inequality’. Most research on inequality focusses on the economic dimension but there is a very substantial body of work that looks at health.

Inequality in health (often referred to as health disparity) is a core topic of the discipline of public health. But what motivates economists to sharpen their tools in readiness for putting them to use on a subject matter – differences in health – that might be considered beyond their domain of expertise? It may be realisation that ill-health is a constraint on earnings power. Economic inequality is, to an extent, a reflection of health inequality. While this realisation may motivate some, and it is a strong stimulus for economic analysis of population health in low-income countries, it is unlikely to explain the growing interest in health inequality among economists in recent years. A more probable explanation is the trend away from the more narrow focus on inequality in income to the more encompassing analysis of inequality in well-being, along with recognition that health, like economic resources, is a core determinant of welfare. Researchers interested in establishing the extent to which well-being differs across individuals, why it differs and whether the differences are narrowing or widening cannot but turn their analytical gaze on health inequalities.