@misc{discovery15321,
         address = {Bonn, Germany},
          number = {2539},
            year = {2007},
       publisher = {Institut zur Zukunft der Arbeit (IZA)},
           title = {The SES health gradient on both sides of the Atlantic},
          series = {IZA Discussion Papers},
           month = {January},
             url = {http://www.iza.org/en/webcontent/publications/papers/viewAbstract?dp\%5fid=2539},
        abstract = {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.},
        keywords = {JEL classification: I10.  Health, SES, labor supply},
          author = {Banks, J. and Marmot, M. and Oldfield, Z. and Smith, J. P.}
}