Why Be Concerned about Poverty and Health ?
It has been known for many decades that the profound improvements in
health in Canada and other industrialized countries have primarily been
due not to advances in medicine or health care but rather in the kind of
societies in which we live. As one illustration, the most profound
causes of the reduction of deaths from infectious diseases such as
typhoid, influenza, and diphtheria were not implementation of
immunizations or medical cures but rather improvements in general
living conditions (McKinlay & McKinlay, 1987).