Because the marked increases in wealth and health occurred at roughly the same time, it is widely believed that economic growth led automatically to improved human welfare. This is the crux of the theory that as countries get richer they pass through an “epidemiological transition” in which life expectancy improves as fewer people die young from infectious diseases, and more people are killed at an older age from chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease and cancer.[15] In fact, the reality is much more complex and troubling.
