Health, Wealth and Inequality: a Contribution to the Debate about the Relationship between Inequality and Health

The relationship between material inequality and health is the subject of considerable debate, and may depend on how the relationship is defined. This paper uses stature as its measure for cumulative health outcomes to illustrate that the 19th century relationship between material inequality and health was negative; greater average state wealth was associated with taller individual statures. The paper also proposes and supports a bio-spatial relationship between the environment and stature.