“Although people have long assumed that higher socioeconomic status bought better health, that was not as true for blacks as it was for whites, says Arline Geronimus, a public-health professor at the University of Michigan. Now that is changing. “The convergence is due to more affluent, educated blacks living longer while less-affluent, less-educated whites are not living as long. It shouldn’t be interpreted as though we’ve made great strides,” she says.”

More about Geronimus quoted in the Economist on racial gap in life expectancy >