Digital Commons Network^™

The notion that income inequality exerts an influence on health status (over and above the long-known effects of individual or household income) has received a great deal of attention in social epidemiology, medical sociology, and economics in the past twenty years. And although a clear consensus on the hypothesis has yet to emerge, a new wave of empirical studies has strengthened the case for seeing income inequality as a social determinant of health. This paper examines the current trajectory of the income inequality – health literature, and explores two issues that will be critical to its development in the coming …

The Gini coefficient has been the most popular method for operationalising income inequality in the public health literature. However, a number of alternative methods exist, and they offer researchers the means to develop a more nuanced understanding of the distribution of income. Income inequality measures such as the generalised entropy index and the Atkinson index offer the ability to examine the effects of inequalities in different areas of the income spectrum, enabling more meaningful quantitative assessments of qualitatively different inequalities. This glossary provides a conceptual introduction to these and other income inequality measures.