I hope for once that we can stop just "highlighting" the problems and telling people what should be done, and find out what already has been done. Let's spead the word of those successful stories. Or else, we keep wrap ourselves into this problem world and never get out!
>>> Dennis Raphael <[log in to unmask]> 03/21/08 7:19 AM >>>
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/joepublic/2008/03/why_ministers_should_mind_the.html
Why ministers should mind the health gap
The government has had a decade to tackle health inequalities, yet still
they persist, writes Mary O'Hara
March 19, 2008 7:45 AM
It was one of those headlines that should be wrong but wasn't: 'Health
inequality has got worse under Labour'. Yes, despite pouring cash into the
NHS and (rightly) making child poverty a priority, somehow over the past
10 years Labour has managed to simultaneously dismantle its own pledges to
close gaps between rich and poor.
The expanding wealth gulf between the most well off and the poorest in our
society and the stalling of social mobility in the past decade have been
well documented and justly criticised. But health inequality is something
altogether different. The health of a nation is a touchstone indicator, it
is a barometer of a country's progress and of the premium those in power
place on the quality of life of its citizens - particularly the most
vulnerable. So what does it tell us when a supposedly progressive
government presides over the kind of changes revealed in last week's
Tackling Health Inequalities report?
While the report notes that (as with affluence) generally health is
heading in the right direction - life expectancy and infant mortality are
both improving for example - when we look at how the statistics actually
break down, a more disturbing picture emerges. Take life expectancy. It
may be up overall but its improving faster for the better off while people
from poorer backgrounds lag behind. According to last week's report, life
expectancy for those in poverty has been falling further behind the
national average over the past decade. And, when it comes to infant
mortality, the report reveals that in 2001-03 the rate among what it
classifies as "routine and manual groups" is 19% higher than for the total
population. This is worse than it was in 1997-99 when it was 13% higher
for this group than the total population.
No one is saying that closing health gaps is easy - and oh how the
government loves to remind us that this is a complex issue where a
multitude of factors from entrenched poverty and low educational
attainment to long term unemployment have a role to play. So what? It was
ever thus. Either this government is serious about this or it isn't. It
has had 10 years to prove it. How many more does it need?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Of related interest:
Poverty and Policy in Canada: Implications for Health and Quality of Life
by Dennis Raphael
Foreword by Jack Layton
http://tinyurl.com/2hg2df
Staying Alive: Critical Perspectives on Health, Illness, and Health Care,
edited by Dennis Raphael, Toba Bryant, and Marcia Rioux
Foreword by Gary Teeple
http://tinyurl.com/2zqrox
Social Determinants of Health: Canadian Perspectives, edited by Dennis
Raphael
Foreword by Roy Romanow
http://tinyurl.com/yptzae
See a lecture! The Politics of Population Health
http://msl.stream.yorku.ca/mediasite/viewer/?peid=ac604170-9ccc-4268-a1af-9a9e04b28e1d
Also, presentation on Politics and Health at the Centre for Health
Disparities in Cleveland Ohio
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4129139685624192201&hl=en
Dennis Raphael, PhD
Professor and Undergraduate Program Director
School of Health Policy and Management
York University
4700 Keele Street
Toronto ON M3J 1P3
416-736-2100, ext. 22134
email: [log in to unmask]
http://www.atkinson.yorku.ca/draphael
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