Forwarded Message:
From: Heck, Katherine E. (E) <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1998 08:38:29 -0400
Subject: RE: Rich get richer, poor get sicker in U.S. - study <fwd>
To: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>
This report, the chartbook associated with this year's "Health, United
States," is available on the Web at
http://www.cdc.gov/nchswww/releases/98news/98news/huspr98.htm or can be
ordered from NCHS or the Government Printing Office (for ordering
information see http://www.cdc.gov/nchswww/howto/obtnpubs/obtnpubs.htm).
The citation for the chartbook is
Pamuk E, Makuc D, Heck K, Reuben C, Lochner K. Socioeconomic Status and
Health Chartbook. Health, United States, 1998. Hyattsville, MD:
National Center for Health Statistics. 1998.
Katherine Heck
-----Original Message-----
From: Alex Scott-Samuel [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, July 31, 1998 4:06 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Rich get richer, poor get sicker in U.S. - study
<fwd>
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]
*******************************************************
Visit our Web Site! http://www.utoronto.ca/qol
******************************************************************
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I have made my choice.
I had no alternative.
-Paul Robeson
******************************************************************
Dennis Raphael, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and Acting Director,
Masters of Health Science Program in Health Promotion
Department of Public Health Sciences
Graduate Department of Community Health
University of Toronto
McMurrich Building, Room 101
Toronto, Ontario, CANADA M5S 1A8
voice: (416) 978-7567
fax: (416) 978-2087
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