TY - CHAP T1 - The SES Health Gradient On Both Sides Of The Atlantic T2 - Developments in the economics of aging Y1 - 2009 A1 - James Banks A1 - Michael Marmot A1 - Oldfield, Zoƫ A1 - James P Smith ED - David A Wise KW - Cross-National KW - Healthcare KW - Risk Taking AB - Looking across many diseases, average health among mature men is much worse in America compared to England. Second, there exists a steep negative health gradient for men in both countries where men at the bottom of the economic hierarchy are in much worse health than those at the top. This health gradient exists whether education, income, or financial wealth is used as the marker of one's SES status. These conclusions are maintained even after controlling for a standard set of behavioral risk factors such as smoking, drinking, and obesity and are equally true using either biological measures of disease or individual self-reports. In contrast to these disease based measures, health of American men appears to be superior to the health of English men when self-reported general health status is used. The contradiction most likely stems instead from different thresholds used by Americans and English when evaluating health status on subjective scales. For the same objective health status, Americans are much more likely to say that their health is good than are the English. Finally, feedbacks from new health events to household income are one of the reasons that underlie the strength of the income gradient with health in England. JF - Developments in the economics of aging T3 - A National Bureau of Economic Research conference report PB - University of Chicago Press CY - Chicago UR - https://ssrn.com/abstract=942969 U4 - health outcomes/cross-national comparison/risk Factors/ELSA_ JO - The SES Health Gradient On Both Sides Of The Atlantic ER -