This is appropriate and important. Poor health is a common consequence of poverty and poverty can be a consequence of poor health. The vicious cycle takes its inexorable toll. Recent thinking has sought to bring health to the centre of the development debate by asserting that poor health is a component, rather than a consequence or cause, of poverty. This is a desirable trend but caution is necessary.
Low income is clearly a necessary and sufficient condition of poverty, but poor health is neither.
It is the explicit goal of many health sector interventions to transform poor unhealthy populations into poor healthy populations, thus breaking the link between disease and poverty. Some societies have made great strides down this road, and rising incomes should follow their improving health status. A second major focus, discussed at length in this issue of the Bulletin , is health inequities and inequalities. In simple terms, an inequity is an unfair and remediable inequality. They measure not how well the disadvantaged group is doing in absolute terms, but how well it is doing relative to the advantaged group.