"In Sickness and in Health" is the first episode of a much larger series called "Unnatural Causes" created by filmmaker Larry Adelman and his non-profit organization called California Newsreel. Adelman founded his nonprofit to create social justice films and media. This episode dives deep into the idea that a persons income directly relates to their likelihood of facing certain medical conditions and complications. The most upsetting, but not shocking, statistic I heard is that the United States spends way more money on medical care than any other country, but we are 30th in life expectancy. Even more troubling than that, the life expectancy is shorter for Americans of color.
The experts in the video find that in old Britain, health and well being is directly related to the class that you are assigned in. People in the United States often would like to think and argue that we are a "classless society". We don't have social classes that are as strict, but we do have economic classes. After further research, experts found that if you separate Americans by their economic class we found the same results as old Britain. Some causes for this result is due do the social determinants of health such as income, neighborhood, healthcare, and access to education.
Last class, we spent time discussing the differences between a personal issues and a social issues. In "In Sickness and in Wealth", they showed graphs representing the statistics of heart disease, strokes, diabetes, and overall health across different income ranges. There was a direct correlation between income and likelihood of facing any of these health issues. As you went up the income gradient, the population of people with these specific health problems decreased. Thinking about this situation, the person who had a stroke is facing a personal issue whether they are rich or poor. A rich person who had a stroke is having a similar experience to a poor person who has had a stroke. They have a common personal issue. The larger scale social issue here is the idea that poorer people are facing medical issues at much higher and alarming rate than affluent people. This is likely due to the social issue of inequality due to a capitalistic economy.
This video also directly relates to the two articles we read last week, Devastated Budgets and Widening Inequities: How the Coronavirus Collapse Will Impact Schools and Thinking About Racial Disparities in COVID-19 Impacts Through a Science-Informed, Early Childhood Lens. "In Sickness and Wealth" was first put out in 2008 but these same ideas of medical inequalities based on income have been exacerbated in 2020 with COVID-19. Inequalities are being more apparent in the death tolls across the United States where is it affecting people of color most harshly. Below is a chart showing the percent of Black Americans in each state compared to the percentage of Black Americans that account for COVID-19 deaths as of May 19th. The APM Research Lab compiled this information for multiple difference races and is available on their article titled The Color of Coronavirus: COVID-19 Deaths by Race and Ethnicity is the U.S.
