EmpiricalRequires evidence

Material living standards stop driving health at a point Part I can date, and the birth weight series is the cleanest marker. The proportion of babies born under 2,500 grams in England and Wales fell through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, then levelled at 6 to 7 percent in the 1950s and has stayed there, a residual core unaffected by better nutrition or sufficient calories. The conclusion Part I quotes: in the later stages of industrial development countries go through a health climacteric after which the health of the vast majority of the population is no longer substantially affected by the absolute material standard of living. Growth remains necessary to arrive and stops being sufficient on arrival.

Risk landscape