PBS series on inequality and health kicks off tonight
Speaking of health disparities related to social factors, tonight marks the launch of a PBS series titled "Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick?" From the promotional materials:The U.S. already spends twice per person on health care than any other industrialized nation. Yet our life expectancy ranks 30th; Costa Ricans live longer. Infant mortality? We’re tied with Hungary, Poland and Slovakia for next to last among industrialized nations. Illnesses cost American business more than a trillion dollars a year in lost productivity.
Further, research has revealed a gradient to health. At each step down the socio-economic ladder — from the rich to the middle class to the poor — people tend to be sicker and die sooner. It's no surprise that poor Americans die eight years before the rich on average, but middle-class Americans die almost three years sooner than the rich.
UNNATURAL CAUSES looks at what's making us sick in the first place, investigating startling new findings that suggest there is much more to poor health than bad habits, inadequate health care or unlucky genes. The series circles in on a slow killer in plain view: the social circumstances in which we are born, live and work that can affect our risk for disease as surely as germs and viruses.
(Image courtesy of PBS)
Labels: inequality, PBS, poverty, public health, Unnatural Causes
