Impact
Why we fund health inequality research
In the United States, income predicts how long a person lives. We fund students who study why, and what to do about it.
The size of the gap
Researchers matched 1.4 billion tax records to death records. The richest 1 percent of American men live 14.6 years longer than the poorest 1 percent. For women the gap is 10.1 years.1
Source: US tax and Social Security records, 2001 to 2014.1
The gap is growing. From 2001 to 2014, life expectancy rose by more than two years for the top 5 percent of earners and barely moved for the bottom 5 percent.1
Who gets to study it
More than three quarters of US medical students come from families in the top two fifths of household income. About one in twenty comes from the bottom fifth, and that share has not moved in three decades.2
The people who study and treat health inequality mostly come from the households it affects least. Bias can also hide in the tools. A widely used algorithm that flags patients for extra care used past health spending as a stand-in for need. Because less is spent on Black patients with the same level of illness, the algorithm under-identified them.3 Finding that took researchers who asked the question. Research experience is the usual route into medicine and public health, and unpaid research is where that route narrows.
What our students do
Students we fund work on health inequality and health economics: who gets care, who pays for it, and who is left out. The Boston Congress of Public Health has used research we funded. Students have published with us on infant mortality, preterm birth, and adolescent mental health.
Where to start reading
The journal article library has a section on health inequality and health economics, from the Oregon Medicaid experiment to studies of bias in medical algorithms. The data sources page lists free data for student projects, including the Health Inequality Project and CDC WONDER.
Sources
- Chetty R, Stepner M, Abraham S, et al. The association between income and life expectancy in the United States, 2001-2014. JAMA. 2016;315(16):1750-1766. jamanetwork.com
- Association of American Medical Colleges. An Updated Look at the Economic Diversity of U.S. Medical Students. Analysis in Brief, October 2018. aamc.org
- Obermeyer Z, Powers B, Vogeli C, Mullainathan S. Dissecting racial bias in an algorithm used to manage the health of populations. Science. 2019;366(6464):447-453. doi.org
Sources checked September 21, 2026. See every source we cite.
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Fund a student researcher
Your gift pays for rent, a stipend, books, or a journal fee. It goes to a student who has the position and lacks the money to take it.