Analysis Of Michael Marmot's The Status Syndrome

Michael Marmot’s book, The Status Syndrome, addresses how an individual’s socioeconomic status contributes to their quality of healthcare and eventually their life expectancy. He states that there is a social gradient that guarantees a better health outcome for those who are wealthier in comparison to those who are not. His book also depicts the following as indicators that influence an individual’s status: income, race, and gender. Marmot’s thesis revolves around this increasing “Status Syndrome”—a condition that reflects how the unequal social gradient relates to the health disparities of individuals in countries around the world. Marmot’s thesis is clearly stated throughout the book as he continually mentions the phenomenon known as the

It not only shed some light on how prevalent health disparities are world wide, but it also allowed me to wonder why this social gradient has become what it is. I expected to learn more about how social gradients affected countries outside of the United States. Luckily, this book enabled me to do so—I learned specifically about the social gradient in countries like the United Kingdom and Russia and how it affects the health care of those from various aspects of this gradient. More specifically, it also allowed me to view the gradient from another perspective, which was one outside of the state of California. The “Status Syndrome” is more prevalent in urban areas. Within these areas, there are high contrasts between those who are well-off versus those that are not. To illustrate this conundrum, he utilizes taking a subway in the Washington, D.C. area as an example. “Travel from the south-east downtown Washington to Montgomery County Maryland. For each mile travelled life expectancy rises about a year and a half” (Marmot, 2). Marmot found that there was an obvious correlation between socioeconomic status and mortality. He ends his novel by discussing how we can all be “agents of change” with the power of sheading light on the importance of this topic with hopes of lowering the social gradient one step at a time. In a way, this has made me question what I can do as an aspiring MPH student to help lower the gradient or to raise more awareness