Over the past three centuries there has been a rapid accumulation of physiological capital in OECD countries. Enhanced physiological capital is tied to long-term reduction in environmental hazards and to the conquest of chronic malnutrition. Data on heights and birth weights suggests that physiological capital has become more equally distributed, thereby reducing socioeconomic disparities in the burden of disease. Implications for health care policy are: (1) enhanced physiological capital has done more to reduce inequities in health status than has wider access to health care; (2) the main contribution of more advanced medical treatment so far has been to retard depreciation in individuals' physiological capital; (3) prenatal and early childhood care and environmental issues are key for interventions aimed at enhancing physiological capital and at affecting its rate of depreciation; (4) lifestyle change is the most important issue affecting health equity in rich countries; and (5) greater access to clinical care should be promoted through aggressive outreach, since expanded insurance coverage by itself is inadequate.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
file. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
9771.
Length: Date of creation: Jun 2003 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:9771
Note: AG DAE Contact details of provider: Postal: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A. Phone: 617-868-3900 Email: Web page: http://www.nber.org More information through EDIRC
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: ().
Related research
Keywords:
Find related papers by JEL classification: I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Production I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)