This chapter reviews differences with respect to health outcomes within and between countries, and the role of the ‘social determinants of health’—family, household, community, and societal conditions—in shaping these outcomes. The pathways from before birth, through the early childhood years, to adolescence and adult health are explored, in particular looking at relationships between health and wealth, as manifested through social, economic, and political factors. National wealth is associated with better child health where adequate resources are channelled into public and social goods, such as clean water and sanitation, education, basic health care, social protection. National, and increasingly global, influences on a country’s ability to raise domestic revenue and finance public services are considered, including aid, trade, and the international and multilateral systems. In a rapidly globalising world, more effort is required to elucidate the channels between global, national and local actors in the generation and equitable distribution of resources.