Epidemiologists focus on Welfare and Health

A new book, The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better, by epidemiologist Richard Wilkinson and health researcher Kate Pickett makes the case that societies that reduce radical differences in the economic wellbeing of their populations reap many other benefits in the welfare of their people.

Here are a couple of reviews of the book, suggesting it is a must read:

• "Bleeding Heart Liberals Proven Right: Too Much Inequality Harms a Society," Robert Fuller and Thomas Scheff, The Huffington Post, June 18, 2009
• "The way we live now," Lynsey Hanley, The Guardian, March 14, 2009

We are rich enough. Economic growth has done as much as it can to improve material conditions in the developed countries, and in some cases appears to be damaging health. If Britain were instead to concentrate on making its citizens' incomes as equal as those of people in Japan and Scandinavia, we could each have seven extra weeks' holiday a year, we would be thinner, we would each live a year or so longer, and we'd trust each other more.