Absolutely about voting early and often on family development, child
development, preschool, etc.
Having families "adopt" single moms seems to be an intervention way
overdue.
In chronic poverty, the gaps seem to be at the earliest ages.
At slightly higher income and education levels, such as in rural and middle
income areas or areas with a broader education focus, it may be gaps in
education at later ages, at least for higher education access.
There is a reasonable start, elementary does ok to a point, then age 10 -
12 there are gaps that develop.
In the path to medical school this involves income, parents who are
professionals or college educated, and health career orientation - in many
ways this is about belief in a career, self image, expectations, and
limitations of local and government and family funding.
Rural areas in particular are good about raising teachers, family doctors,
nurses, and service oriented professionals, but have lower rates of college
and professional school admission. The limited variety of professionals
seen during upbringing may shape future career paths in more general and
service-oriented directions, but in some ways limit more specialized career
choices. Of course for me, I see the limitations as an asset since we
clearly need all of the service-oriented professions, but I also believe in
human potential. From the standpoint of the higher income and professional
family types, they miss out on the basic service types and people skills
and may miss out on their true calling and on life itself. Having it too
good can tend to make you not appreciate life at all.
This was a a particularly bad week. Taxes, patients who had family members
shot or multiple sleepless nights interrupted by gunfire. Case workers that
range from the very good and caring to burned out and inept. and extreme
inefficiencies at all levels.
Also don't believe all you hear about Omaha NE in the news. Clearly the
Omaha Public Schools have inner city and segregational components, but so
do many of the other schools. The picture is also being painted in extreme
lines. Only 1 Senator serves a district with a black majority and he black,
and he is the Senator with the flair for the dramatic that proposed the
school divisions along racial lines. Omaha and Nebraska are growing more
diverse, but whites are the majority in all but the one Omaha district and
some tribal areas. Nebraska is the 7th best state in income divisions with
an 8 to 1 ratio of highest income quintile to lowest, or $109000 to $12000,
not far from Utah the leader at 7 to 1 and much different than Washington
DC at 28 to 1 or 150,000 to 5600. Nebraska's social work, Medicaid, day
care, transportation, housing, and other support have been increasing
problems. In my opinion three areas have precipitated worsening problems.
The first is gambling across the river approved by Iowa. The second is cuts
in Medicaid and mental health and other health support. The third is cell
phones. The scams and hooks and financial destructions in these areas are
enormous. One month and phones virtually free, then hundreds to get out
when bills run up. Cell phone companies compete for lowest fiscal
responsibility with salesmen checking and negotiating who will require the
least from those who have no business with a cell phone or access to
anything but basic services because of kids, teens, family members who
abuse, etc.
Wonder if anyone has any data on cell phones and poverty and bankruptcy?
How about cell phone use and school failure? Got at least 1 teen patient in
this category.
The combo of cable TV, gambling, and cell phones appears to be particularly
devastating.
The cost of building the entire cell phone infrastructure has been
incredible. What we had diverted from important areas is enormous!
The housing scams, landlord issues, security problems, used auto scams,
regressive taxes, out of pocket costs, and low wage situations were bad
enough and low income peoples do not need more of this destruction.
Robert C. Bowman, M.D.
[log in to unmask]
-------------------
Problems/Questions? Send it to Listserv owner: [log in to unmask]
To unsubscribe, send the following message in the text section -- NOT the subject header -- to [log in to unmask]
SIGNOFF SDOH
DO NOT SEND IT BY HITTING THE REPLY BUTTON. THIS SENDS THE MESSAGE TO THE ENTIRE LISTSERV AND STILL DOES NOT REMOVE YOU.
To subscribe to the SDOH list, send the following message to [log in to unmask] in the text section, NOT in the subject header.
SUBSCRIBE SDOH yourfirstname yourlastname
To post a message to all 1000+ subscribers, send it to [log in to unmask]
Include in the Subject, its content, and location and date, if relevant.
For a list of SDOH members, send a request to [log in to unmask]
To receive messages only once a day, send the following message to [log in to unmask]
SET SDOH DIGEST
To view the SDOH archives, go to: https://listserv.yorku.ca/archives/sdoh.html
|
