<story><title>The Gap Between Rich and Poor Americans&apos; Health Is Widening</title><url>https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/06/28/736938334/the-gap-between-rich-and-poor-americans-health-is-widening</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>denverkarma</author><text>It’s really hard for me not to be skeptical of a study that starts with the premise of measuring everyone else against “the most privileged group,” aka. white men, and then calling their metric “health justice.”&lt;p&gt;I don’t know the stats off the top of my head but I’ve heard many times that men’s health issues are under-studies relative to women’s — ie breast cancer versus prostate cancer. I’ve also seen that mental health problems affect men more than women, as well as behavioral problems with youth, and yet there’s no outcry for “health justice” for all the men with mental issues or men vastly overrepresented in the prison population.&lt;p&gt;The study claims that health correlates most strongly with income, and that the gap between black and white has narrowed - and yet the study author claims there’s a “stunning lack of progress.”&lt;p&gt;Most of America’s problems correlate most strongly with income and more weakly with race and gender, which isn’t surprising when income itself is uneven between race and gender demographics.&lt;p&gt;Yet it feels to me like we’re constantly crying out about race and gender discrimination while paying much less attention to wealth and income which seem to be the root issue.&lt;p&gt;Are there racists in the country? Do hate crimes happen? Yes, and we shouldn’t gloss over them.&lt;p&gt;But are the country’s problems driven mostly by racial hatred? I don’t think so. I think the problem is we have done a lot to pull the ladder up behind the upper-middle class, everyone in the lower income brackets is getting screwed, and &lt;i&gt;that&lt;/i&gt; disproportionately affects minorities and historically disadvantaged groups. I think if we could get more serious about putting the ladder back and investing in upward mobility for all, we could make a lot more progress on all the rest of the issues that are affecting the country.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>SolaceQuantum</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;I don’t know the stats off the top of my head but I’ve heard many times that men’s health issues are under-studies relative to women’s — ie breast cancer versus prostate cancer.&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I think the actual metric is extremely complicated. By and large, symptoms of diseases and illness are based on male patients. Drug trials often exclude women (due to pregnancy risk) and many exclude pregnant women (forcing pregnant women to go without necessary medication to protect the fetus). Certain women&amp;#x27;s cancers like breast cancer recieve significant income but other issues like endomeitrosis recieve little to no research. Women are statistically forced to wait longer at ER and have their pain dismissed more regularly as not indicating anything serious.&lt;p&gt;So in some ways men are considered &amp;#x27;default&amp;#x27; for drug trials, clinical health profiles, their pain and health are considered more seriously, etc. On the other hand, there isn&amp;#x27;t a lot of money for mental health geared towards men in particular, certain cancers that are male specific are ignored, and there isn&amp;#x27;t as much pressure for thinness and health on men as there are women socially.&lt;p&gt;So I don&amp;#x27;t think there&amp;#x27;s clear lines that by far X gender is oppressed on all levels in the healthcare field. It would be more accurate to presume that there are many different systemic failures correlated with different demographics, and this affects different demographics differently.&lt;p&gt;While I agree with you that class has a massive influence, I would hesitate to agree with you that the country&amp;#x27;s problems should be considered primarily class based. We are still only a generation past (less than a generation? arguably still ongoing?) purposefully refusing to lend or perform economic deals with people based on their race or gender. This would show up as class stratification but has a racial&amp;#x2F;sexist cause, so it may be inaccurate to presume that solely economic solution would resolve all other societal stratification issues.&lt;p&gt;(But I really do agree with you we need to remove barriers of economic class transfer.)</text></comment>
<story><title>The Gap Between Rich and Poor Americans&apos; Health Is Widening</title><url>https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/06/28/736938334/the-gap-between-rich-and-poor-americans-health-is-widening</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>denverkarma</author><text>It’s really hard for me not to be skeptical of a study that starts with the premise of measuring everyone else against “the most privileged group,” aka. white men, and then calling their metric “health justice.”&lt;p&gt;I don’t know the stats off the top of my head but I’ve heard many times that men’s health issues are under-studies relative to women’s — ie breast cancer versus prostate cancer. I’ve also seen that mental health problems affect men more than women, as well as behavioral problems with youth, and yet there’s no outcry for “health justice” for all the men with mental issues or men vastly overrepresented in the prison population.&lt;p&gt;The study claims that health correlates most strongly with income, and that the gap between black and white has narrowed - and yet the study author claims there’s a “stunning lack of progress.”&lt;p&gt;Most of America’s problems correlate most strongly with income and more weakly with race and gender, which isn’t surprising when income itself is uneven between race and gender demographics.&lt;p&gt;Yet it feels to me like we’re constantly crying out about race and gender discrimination while paying much less attention to wealth and income which seem to be the root issue.&lt;p&gt;Are there racists in the country? Do hate crimes happen? Yes, and we shouldn’t gloss over them.&lt;p&gt;But are the country’s problems driven mostly by racial hatred? I don’t think so. I think the problem is we have done a lot to pull the ladder up behind the upper-middle class, everyone in the lower income brackets is getting screwed, and &lt;i&gt;that&lt;/i&gt; disproportionately affects minorities and historically disadvantaged groups. I think if we could get more serious about putting the ladder back and investing in upward mobility for all, we could make a lot more progress on all the rest of the issues that are affecting the country.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>save_ferris</author><text>Statistically speaking, white men are far and away the highest income earners in America. They are literally the most privileged group. Until 2008, 44 of 44 of US presidents were white men. White men dominate the Fortune 500, Wall Street, and leadership in the government.&lt;p&gt;The paper also explicitly defined health justice as &amp;quot;a measure of the correlation of health outcomes with income, race&amp;#x2F;ethnicity and sex; and a summary health equity metric.&amp;quot;, which doesn&amp;#x27;t sound like much of an editorialization to me.</text></comment>