Intelligence: Is It the Epidemiologists' Elusive "Fundamental Cause" of Social Class Inequalities in Health?

TLDR

Health disparities across socioeconomic status are pervasive, yet conventional theories fail to explain their universal, graded nature, prompting the search for a fundamental cause. The article aims to show that differences in general intelligence (g) could be the fundamental cause of health inequalities. Evidence suggests that variations in general intelligence may underlie health disparities across socioeconomic strata.

Abstract

Virtually all indicators of physical health and mental competence favor persons of higher socioeconomic status (SES). Conventional theories in the social sciences assume that the material disadvantages of lower SES are primarily responsible for these inequalities, either directly or by inducing psychosocial harm. These theories cannot explain, however, why the relation between SES and health outcomes (knowledge, behavior, morbidity, and mortality) is not only remarkably general across time, place, disease, and kind of health system but also so finely graded up the entire SES continuum. Epidemiologists have therefore posited, but not yet identified, a more general "fundamental cause" of health inequalities. This article concatenates various bodies of evidence to demonstrate that differences in general intelligence (g) may be that fundamental cause.