The income gradient in children's health: A comment on Currie, Shields and Wheatley Price

This paper re-examines differences found between income gradients in American and English children's health, in results originally presented by [Case, A., Lubotsky, D., Paxson, C., 2002. Economic status and health in childhood: the origins of the gradient. American Economic Review 92, 1308-1334] for the US, and by [Currie, A., Shields, M.A., Wheatley Price, S., 2007. The child health/family income gradient: evidence from England. Journal of Health Economics 26, 213-232] for England. We find that these differences are reduced when English and American data from the same time period are compared. In addition, Currie, Shields and Wheatley Price's measures of chronic conditions from the Health Survey of England were incorrectly coded. Corrected data indicate that income plays a larger role in buffering children's health from the effects of chronic conditions in England. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.