Social inequalities, nutrition and health

The health status of individuals as well as of entire populations can be influenced by social inequalities. The disparity between the copious wealth of industrialized nations and the extreme poverty of the developing countries has yet to be leveled. A large percentage of the world population lies on the edge of poverty and lacks the financial and human resources to deal with the vast demographic and epidemiological transition which is taking place and which will add to the excessive toll of disability and death from infectious diseases a further burden from the impending epidemic of chronic-degenerative diseases. The unequal economic progress has caused an alteration of the health status in different communities, leading to a clear distinction between diseases in affluence and diseases in poverty. But not always a rise in the average income level has lead to a similar improvement in life expectancy. So we can figure an absolute poverty of the developing countries and a relative poverty of industrialized nations in which the prevailing diseases seem to affect overall the less educated and the social classes at a lower income. Nowadays people in the developing countries still die of starvation. The planning of strategies to ameliorate health conditions and to overcome absolute poverty in the less affluent regions and relative poverty caused by social inequalities in the wealthier ones, must take into account the level of education and a more equable distribution of resources. In the next future the goal of the challenge will be to obtain successful achievements in improving life expectancy and quality of life.