To really address the poor health of the poor, we would have to uproot the stressors involved in low rank rather than give people more money
Areas in America with income inequality as low as in Canada still have more stress and poor health because of less available social capital. This is pretty depressing stuff, given its implications. Nancy Adler, writing around the time when universal health insurance first became a front-page issue (as was the question of whether Hillary’s hairstyle made her a more or less effective advocate for it), concluded that such universal coverage would “have a minor impact on SES-related inequalities in health.” Her conclusion is anything but reactionary. Instead, it says that if you want to change the SES gradient, it’s going to take something a whole lot bigger than rigging up insurance so that everyone can drop in regularly on a friendly small-town doc out of Norman Rockwell. Poverty, and the poor health of the poor, is about much more than simply not having enough money. It’s about the stressors caused in a society that tolerates leaving so many of its members so far behind.
References
- Sapolsky, Robert. (2004). Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers Chapter 17. The View from the Bottom (p. 535). New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company.
Metadata
Type:🔴 Tags: Biology / Neuroscience / Psychology / Neuropsychology / Social Psychology / Medicine / Politics / Economics Status:☀️