In response to the article “ Health and Wealth”. In this article it states, people with money live longer and have better health care services. Health and wealth are related in many ways in an individual's life. Wealth has an influence on health, resulting in a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being. Also, an impact on a person's socioeconomic status, and that determines a person's health. First of all, a human being is able to have a longer life expectancy due to their geography, where they live will help them prevent disease's. According to Picard (2009), “Canada's poor have a worse life expectancy than the well off” (p. 01). Picard (2009), provides evidence that shows, people who are the healthiest and live longer are …show more content…
In addition, your geography determine's your life expectancy and those who are wealthier live in better places resulting in lower diseases. As we go towards places that are poorer the life expectancy decreases. Furthermore, people that have poor job status have lower income and have more disease's than those, who have high status jobs, indicating that they have high income. For example, According to the CCSU (2004), “Coronary heart disease rates from three groups (CHD) of the Whitehall II study: those who report they have high level of control at work (high job control, incidence of you getting CHD is 1), People with intermediate or low job control has over twice the incidence of coronary heart disease as people with high job control” (p.07). Therefore, people that have low job status have higher rates of getting CHD disease's than those who have good jobs with high control have a lower chance of CHD. Moreover, a person's life expectancy is dependent on where you live, your surrounding, and that help's you prevent diseases. As stated Picard (2009), “Poverty makes people unhealthy and poverty kills” (p. 02). Picard (2009), …show more content…
People that are rich have better jobs than those people who are struggling, the wealthy are able to pay their bills, and have no debts resulting in no stress. In the film Unnatural Causes (California Newsreel, 2008), Gordan Straufer is the CEO of Northlands and is on the higher side of the income spectrum, he is someone with high job security, and in the film he is showing off his life. He has a job that he doesn't have to stress about, while on the other hand in the movie it takes us to an place called Richmond where an individual Gwai Boonkeut is struggling to make ends meet. He has no job security, has no money, many debts, no food, and due to all that he has stress. As for Gwai losing his job doesn't just affect him, but impacts his family. This just shows that there's one side trying to make ends meet and making sure that they are not unemployed causing there health to decline even
I chose not to use any of the prompts provided, but instead connect the article to what I learned in my sociology class lass quarter. In class we watched part one of film series of Unnatural causes, titled Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making us Sick "In Sickness and in Wealth". While reading the article this reminded me about the cases studied in the film to see whether wealth inequality contributes to making people sick. In the film they focused on the social determinants of health, wealth and education. In both the article and part one of the film Unnatural Causes they focused on three different individuals and how their health are affected by they choices they make and the access they have to care.
Social determinants of health (SDOH) are increasingly becoming a major problem of Public Health around the World. The impact of resources and material deprivation among people and populations has resulted in an increase in mortality rate on a planetary scale. Social determinants of health are defined as the personal, social, economic and the environmental conditions which determines the health status of an individual or population (Gardner, 2013). Today’s society is characterized by inequalities in health, education, income and many other factors which as a result is becoming a burden for Public Health around the world. Research studies have shown that the conditions in which people live and work strongly influenced their health. Individuals with high levels of education and fall within the high income bracket turn to have stable jobs, live in the best neighborhood and have access to quality health care system than individuals who have low education and fall with the low income bracket. This paper is to explain different social determinants of health and how they play ...
The video “In Sickness and In Wealth” is about how healthy your body is connected to your means of health. In this video it views the life of four individuals with different lifestyles and different levels of income. In this video it displays the life of a CEO, lab supervisor, janitor and unemployed mother, all from Louisville, Kentucky. It explained how their social class affect their standard of living as well as their health. In this video demonstrate how social class shapes access to control, resources and opportunity, resulting in a health-wealth incline.
Germov (2015): 87-93) states that the most common explanations of health inequality can be grouped into five main categories. These five categories are artifact explanations, natural/social selection explanations, cultural/behavioral explanations, materialist/structural explanations, and psycho-social/social capital explanations of the social gradient of health. Basically, health inequality has to do with what your status is as an individual, cultural, economic, as well as educational level. In the textbook, Germov (2015: 516) defines the term social gradient of health “as a continuum of health inequality in most countries from high to low.”
Those who live more sedentary life styles are at risk for heart disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure, all things that effect lower-socioeconomic groups more often than those in higher income brackets. Those who are less educated are also twice as likely to smoke cigarettes as the most educated.
Variations in life expectancy and its changes are one major cause of rising income inequality. How long a person lives, as well as their quality of health, can have an important and huge impact on their income and social mobility. The life expectancy of the bottom 10% increases at only half the rate that the life expectancy of the top 10% does (Belsie). This shows that improvements in medicine benefit the wealthy more than the poor. The less wealthy have decreased access to good medical insurance and cannot afford more expensive, quality medical care. The poor are less likely to invest in healthy food and exercise, lowering life expectancy and overall health. These changes result in a cycle that causes the poor to be less healthy, and the less healthy to become increasingly poor. On the other side, the rich have different variations of habits, education, and environments, which can affect life expectancy, often positively for the
Lynch, J. W. (1996). Do cardiovascular risk factors explain the relation between socioeconomic status, risk of all-cause morality, cariovascular mortality, and acute mycardial infarction? American Journal of Epidemiology, 144 (10), 934-942.
During the Industrial Revolution of the Victorian Era, life expectancy was so low due to the lack of sanitation, working conditions, and less medical knowledge that we have now. At the time, the average age people were dying was at 35 years old (Lambert). The age, however, varied depending on where one lived. Normally, people who lived in cities died at a younger age than people who live in rural areas. The class that one was in also greatly impacted a person’s life span. It mainly impacted poor working-class communities, because of the poor conditions that came with being a member of that class (Wilde).
Socio-economic class or socio-economic status (SES) may refer to mixture of various factors such as poverty, occupation and environment. It is a way of measuring the standard and quality of life of individuals and families in society using social and economic factors that affect health and wellbeing ( Giddens and Sutton, 2013). Cockerham (2007 p75) argues: ‘Social class or socioeconomic status (SES) is the strongest predictor of health, disease causation and longevity in medical sociology.’ Research in the 1990s, (Drever and Whitehead, 1997) found out that people in higher SES are generally healthier, and live longer than those in lower SES.
Unnatural Causes, is Inequality Making us Sick? Is a documentary produced by California Newsreel, and directed by Lleewled M. Smith. Unnatural Cause analyses the factors which can influence the US population‘s health. The film illustrated several families in order to show how their health is influenced depend on different circumstances. The film is supported by the use of survey research which it is a sociological method to gather data. Additionally, the film gives proved sources showing that The US invests billions of dollars on health but still millions of people die every day. In fact, The USA is one of the richest countries in the world, but it is at the bottom of the list concerning life expectancy. An important question that professionals
Nordqvist, Christian stated some facts about health, “ health can be defined as a physical, mental, and social well being, and a resource for living a full life. It refers not only to the absence of disease, but the ability to recover and bounce back from illness. Factors for good health include genetics, the environment, relationship, and education.”(page2). Health can be defined in many factors, but they all relate to a person's status and where their class in the economy. If one is wealthy, he or she can have access to healthcare that provides treatment to any of their health issues. But for the people who have low income, they can not afford health insurance and have a higher risk of becoming ill because they don’t have the resources to live a full healthy life. Most of those individuals have mental health issues because they often stress about living and surviving everyday with so little income. Christian Nordiqvist also said, “According to the WHO, the higher a person's socioeconomic status (SES), the more likely they are to enjoy good health, a good education, a well-paid job, afford good healthcare when their health is threatened” (pg.2). Christian is correct because the wealthier a person is, the higher chance of being in good health because he or she has the privilege of good health
This is what Wilkinson tries to understand with his theory of income inequality, and thereby hopes to give an explanation to why health differences occur (Rowlingson, 2011). This says that ‘it is not the richest countries that have the greatest health, but it is the most egalitarian societies that are healthier and have a smaller disparity in health’ (Wilkinson, 1996). In this essay the Wilkinson Theory is going to be discussed in depth in order to help explain what psycho-social pathways are and why they affect health on a national level.
Most of the diseases of later life have their origin years earlier. - Income is
It is easier for wealthy people to pay for their needs, such as health care and dental care. If any abrupt situation approaches dealing with their health, a wealthy person will be financially stable to pay and fix it. According to an article, "Happiness Around The World: Is There More To It Than Money?" by Bozionelos, Nikos, and Ioannis Nikolaou, “One would expect that money is more important when it helps meet basic needs, and this should be especially true in poorer nations. However, as already seen, the relationship between income and general life satisfaction was mainly explained by whether material aspirations (such as buying luxury goods) could be fulfilled.” In other words, one’s concept of happiness can vary from nation to nation. For example, people living in poor nations and having a low income tend to be satisfied by having just enough to meet their necessities. While, on the other hand, people with higher income tend to be satisfied if they have enough to buy luxury goods. Being wealthy does not lead one to happiness; it can help some people to obtain happiness, but it can also lead others to have unwanted experiences. Having a minimum amount of money is necessary to be happy. Having the minimum amount of money to pay bills, have medical assistance, buy groceries, and clothing is considered as the basics needed for one to be happy. Money is a tool that can help a person obtain objects that can help him or her to have a comfortable life. However, money should not become the reason why a person is happy. Happiness comes within a person as a human being and money will never replace a friend, nor a loved
Technology in terms of medicine has also increased the life expectancy of the average person. With new technological advancements in surgeries, medicines and treatments the average life expectancy is still on the increase. A recent study shows that the average life span for 2004 of a United States Citizen is 77.4 years old. This has increased significantly from 1900 where the average lifespan for a male was 48.2 and for the female 51.5. Thanks to technology we can now live longer.