A QUEST FOR FAIR OUTCOMES IN HEALTH & WELLNESS

EPISODE 1, PART 2

A- A Quest for Health, Wellness & Equal Outcomes

B- The Illusion of Equal Justice Under Law

C- REPRESSED ANGER, OPPRESSED POPULATION, & COMPRESSED PRISON WALLS… STILL, I HEAR VOICES

PART 2 (A)

In my capacity as an advocate for the poor and other disadvantaged persons and groups, and as a firm believer in using the law to enhance the common good, I have been fortunate to attend and actively participate in several conferences and other leadership seminars all over the United States. Many of these conferences were focused on evaluating current challenges and marshaling potential solutions to many identified socioeconomic difficulties involved in the area of general social and public health and safety, delinquency prevention, juvenile justice and general access to justice for all.

It is of course my view that upon reflection, and a review of the analysis done in the following pages, all of these would be appropriately found to be interconnected, and thus, appropriate issues to be considered as part of an overall discussion about general public health concerns.

While new prisons and prison construction constitute one of the major economic growth areas in the United States, some of the more significant findings from respected independent researchers and other government sponsored studies suggest that, while United States spends the most per person on health care, at one point, it ranked 24th worldwide in infant mortality rate. And that if (for example) African Americans within the United States were considered separately as if they constitute a separate country, their condition will rank 30th, even below certain so-called third world countries. Sadly, things are not much better for other minority groups (including other white people in Appalachia, and other rural areas of the country whose health status are marginally better).

Interestingly, over the years, several summits have focused attention on the plethora of very germane issues that have impacted and continue to impact the health status of different groups in America, including African Americans. The general conclusions regarding causal connections to this socio-economic and public health care dilemma have not materially changed.

In fact, it has been determined that there is no single genetic factor in African Americans (or any other racial group) that would cause significant disparity in their health status, compared to other races. Consequently, the reasons for such unfavorable disparity in the health status of African Americans for example, must be due to other factors, other than biology, or skin pigmentation.

It has been pointed out that the use of race as a factor in evaluating health status has serious negative consequences in the diagnosis of ailments, in the treatment of sicknesses, and in the assumptions about racial beliefs, behavior, and biology. In reality, race merely serves the ideological objectives of particular groups in society, and is used to influence policies, and to justify continued exploitation of, or indifference towards issues of concern to particular racial groups.

A clear example of this is the Tuskegee syphilis study for which the White House acknowledged and apologized only a few years ago. The study, which was race based, erroneously believed that diseases will manifest themselves differently in White people and Black people because of their alleged biological differences. The apology by the Clinton Administration obviously came a few decades too late for many of them who were deliberately infected and left untreated, merely to satisfy some morbid curiosity. It is thus clear from ample examples that race is not useful a a biological category, but rather as a social category.

In fact, the issue of race in health care merely reflects a confluence of political, social, environmental, and geographical facts. The reality, therefore, is that it is societal factors and forces identified above (among others), that cause the differences in socio-economic and health status of different groups in society.

Consequently, as long as these basic causal factors in society remain the same, the will continue to yield the same results and outcomes. Epidemiologists are thus invited, IN THEIR QUEST TO CORRECTLY STUDY THE CAUSES OF DISEASES, to spend a little more time evaluating the impact of disparity in social opportunities, access and treatment of different groups, including the impact of racism, economic opportunity, religion, culture, beliefs, environment, geography, and (to a lesser extent) biological variables. This is because, in the final analysis, these would be found to be the real spiders weaving the web of disparity of access, and thus, of the unequal outcomes

It has thus been found that the key determinant to the significant differences in health status of people is largely due to socio-economic status of such individuals. It is however instructive that the socioeconomic opportunities reveal a marked racial disparity, as about 33% of the Black population in the United States is considered to be living below the poverty line, while only about 11% of the White population is below the poverty line or considered poor. Additionally, studies found that Hispanics and Blacks with similar education and experience, on average earn about $5,000.00 less annually than their White counterparts with similar education and level of experience. And at the lowest level of income, Blacks are one thousand (1,000) times poorer than similarly situated Whites.

All these go to further buttress the point that it is macroeconomic forces and racism that are the basic factor influencing the disparity in the health status between Whites and Blacks in the United States. Further compounding this problem is the fact that many African Americans who (overtly, or subconsciously) buy into this alleged inherent racial inferiority as the causal explanation for their poorer health status) which has been orchestrated for the past four hundred years or so in the United States, tend to have higher health problems, including depression, abuse of drugs, alcohol dependency, and greater stress.