Aspectos teóricos e metodológicos da relação entre o estado de saúde e a desigualdade de renda

One of the main socioeconomic problems observed in most countries – particularly in less developed countries – is the presence of high income inequality and poverty level. Several empirical works have attempted to analyze their major determinants as well as their effect on some indicators related to social welfare, such as the level of economic growth, criminality rate, and health status. In Brazil, such issues are particularly relevant, since it possesses one of the worst income distributions in the world, whose Gini coefficient is around 0.607. This paper aims at studying the relationship between health status and income distribution, considering theoretical and metodological aspects of this analysis. On the one hand, income distribution may affect health status, since more unequal societies are characterized by the existence of social conflicts and lower social cohesion – which in turn affects the quality of individual relations. On the other hand, as it is one of the human capital components and directly affects the capacity of generating wage earnings, health may have impacts on income distribution.