The diffusion of health technologies: Cultural and biological divergence

- The paper proposes the hypothesis that cultural and biological relatedness to the health frontier influence population health.
- The analysis finds a robust negative relationship between population health and genetic distance to the US, i.e. a gene gradient.
- The gene gradient is most clear when life expectancy or the adult survival rate is used as aggregate health measures.
- The gene gradient emerges at the onset of the international epidemiological transition (circa1950).

This paper proposes the hypothesis that genetic distance to the health frontier influences population health outcomes. Evidence from a world sample suggests that genetic distance, interpreted as long-term cultural and biological divergence, is an important factor in understanding health inequalities across countries. Specifically, the paper documents a remarkably robust negative link between genetic distance to the United States and population health-as measured by life expectancy at birth and the adult survival rate-even after accounting for an extensive set of possible confounders, such as GDP per capita and various climatic factors. Consistent with the interpretation that genetic distance is related to population health indirectly through human barriers to the diffusion of modern health technologies, the evidence indicates that the gene gradient emerges at the onset of the international epidemiological transition.