Forwarded Message:
From: Alex Scott-Samuel <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1998 04:06:06 -0400
Subject: Rich get richer, poor get sicker in U.S. - study <fwd>
To: [log in to unmask]
Dear companeros,
a favor:
could someone please give me the full reference, price,
and details of how to order this report - or alternatively,
fax / send me the title page and relevant section referred
to below?
Many thanks,
Alex
PS I'm also very interested - from a policy perspective -
in U.S. press coverage of the income inequality / health
issue (ie the media's reaction to the dawning realisation
that capitralism is bad for your health). All cuttings
gratefully received.
> 06:19 PM ET 07/29/98
>
> Rich get richer, poor get sicker in U.S. - study
>
>
> Release at midnight EDT
> By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
> WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The rich are getting not just richer
> but healthier, too, while the poor are getting more than their
> fair share of illnesses in the United States, the government
> said Thursday.
> Researchers who helped put together the government's annual
> report card on the state of the nation's health said they were
> struck by how strongly health, income and education are linked
> in this country, despite efforts to give everyone the same shot
> at a healthy life.
> ``We might be able to do a better job,'' Elsie Pamuck, a
> health researcher at the National Center for Health Statistics
> (NCHS), who helped write the report, said in a telephone
> interview.
> ``What we see is this overall picture of how important your
> socioeconomic status is, measured by either education or
> income,'' she added.
> ``What I think is very striking about this report is just
> how pervasive this is and how it cuts across a whole range of
> health behaviors.''
> Despite years spent trying to iron out inequalities, the
> report finds that life is still not fair in the United States.
> Rich people are much more likely than anyone else to enjoy good
> health.
> And the rich are getting richer.
> ``Income inequality in the United States increased between
> 1970 and 1996. The growth in inequality was due primarily to
> larger increases in income among high-income than low-income
> households,'' the report, more than 400 pages thick, says.
> The top 20 percent of earners made 22 percent more during
> that time, while most people earned only between 5 and 7 percent
> more.
> ``Children under 18 years of age were 40 percent more likely
> to live in poverty than was the population as a whole in 1996,''
> the report said. This was especially true if a single mother
> headed the household.
> And minorities are still the poorest group. ``On the whole,
> black persons and Hispanic persons had a poverty rate about 3.3
> times that of non-Hispanic white persons,'' it said.
> There is plenty of good news in the report. Heart disease
> and cancer. the two biggest killers of Americans, are declining
> in all groups.
> ``Life expectancy is at an all-time high, infant mortality
> is at an all-time low,'' Pamuck added. ``We have seen
> significant declines in recent years in the main causes of
> death, in heart disease and in cancer, from HIV and from
> gun-related violence.''
> Life expectancy at birth for someone born in 1900 was 47.3
> years. Someone born in 1996 can expect to live to be 76.1 years
> old, as compared to 75.8 in 1995 and 75.5 for someone born in
> 1993.
> Someone who was 65 in 1996 can expect to live another 17.5
> years, up from 17.4 in 1995 and 11.9 in 1900.
> But income still affects this expectation greatly. ``During
> 1979-89 white men who were 45 years of age and who had family
> income of at least $25,000 could expect to live 6.6 years longer
> than men with family income less than $10,000 (33.9 years
> compared with 27.3 years),'' the report said.
> ``This is the first time a lot of this information has been
> pulled together and examined in a fairly systematic way,''
> Pamuck said.
> She said the Public Health Service might need to stop
> looking at health in a piecemeal way -- for instance how to
> fight high blood pressure or how to persuade people to stop
> smoking -- and look at ways of improving health overall.
> ``As long as we approach it in a piecemeal fashion we are
> sort of battling the tide,'' she said.
> ``Maybe there are better and more comprehensive ways to
> approach it and I really don't think we've had that dialogue in
> this country.''
>
> ^REUTERS@
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2555305131-f34
******************************************************
Alex Scott-Samuel
EQUAL (Equity in Health Research and Development Unit)
Department of Public Health
University of Liverpool
Whelan Building
Quadrangle
Liverpool
L69 3GB
Tel (44)151-794-5569
Fax (44)151-794-5588
e-mail [log in to unmask]
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