The economist and historian Richard Easterlin has argued convincingly that, when we try to match the onset of economic growth with the improvements in health, the timing is wrong … The improvement of public health required action by public authorities, which required political agitation and consent and could not have been accomplished through the market alone, although rising incomes certainly made it easier to fund often costly sanitary projects.

Angus Deaton (2013). The Great Escape. Health, wealth and the origins of inequality, p 93