摘要：I am very happy to introduce this issue of Focus, which covers four topics: the income-health gradient; emergency savings for low-income families; a successful place-based urban policy—the federal urban Empowerment Zone program; and jobs—the importance of who you work for, and job quality for low-wage workers. These articles are based on recent work by our local and national affiliates. All of them send the message that addressing the problems of health status gradients, emergency savings, and decent jobs are complicated endeavors. But each of these advances our policy- and poverty-relevant knowledge and gives hope of improved lives for low-income families. First up is an introduction to an important new book, The Biological Consequences of Socioeconomic Inequalities edited by Barbara Wolfe, William Evans, and Teresa E. Seeman, which grew out of a series of meetings to engage both social and biological scientists to examine the sources of the well-known socioeconomic status-health gradient. For example, they assess how social and biological factors might explain the relationship between child health and family income. Evidence using children certainly suggests that family income influences health, but it is not possible to fully explain observed differences in health by income alone. While this work does not answer all of the questions regarding the mechanisms by which health differs by economic status, it greatly advances what we know about one of the most debated and important relationships in society: economic well-being and health. The answers to this puzzle link closely to the IRP major research theme of the intergenerational transmission of poverty, starting later this year.
