Health, Wealth, and Those Left on the Shelf (9/16/20)

In the readings this week, a clear connection can be established between Unnatural Causes: In Sickness and Wealth and Thinking About Racial Disparities in COVID-19 Impacts Through a Science-Informed, Early Childhood Lens (Shonkoff and Williams). When citing the causes of disparities in health and wellness amongst populations in the US, they both purpose that environment, career options, and access to healthcare are profound influential factors. Additionally, they both reveal how individuals can become predisposed to experiencing poor health as adults due to conditions experienced in the early years of life. 

Although we are all living on the same planet, and American’s are living on the same continent, environmental conditions are not universal. Unnatural Causes thoroughly explores environmental conditions in Louisville, Kentucky in a way accentuates the drastically different conditions between the classes residing there. The areas that consist mostly upper class/ upper-middle class reap the benefit of various options for both food and healthcare. Those who are less affluent, live in areas where they are exposed to harmful pollutants and engage in poor dietary decisions for lack of healthful choices in the available shopping options. Shonkoff and Williams point out that these populations will often suffer obesity, hypertension, and diabetes, setting them up to be more vulnerable to fatal diseases, such as COVID 19. Meanwhile, practices like “redlining” are helping to maintain this dynamic of keeping the marginalized on the fringes. 

In these two articles, it is pointed out that career options for African American, Hispanic American, and Native American populations are often jobs that put their lives in jeopardy, or are extremely stressful because these are the jobs that are available to them. Individual educational levels are a contributing factor in this inequitable job dispersion. Those who do not have the ability to seek higher education find themselves tied to the less desirable positions in order to maintain a “survival mode” standard of living. The stresses inflicted on individuals living this way increases the level of cortisol in the bloodstream, which leads to a decidedly shorter lifespan.

A side effect of minorities working less desirable jobs is that they make less money. This creates an obstacle in their ability to receive adequate preventative and acute healthcare. Many suffer the inability to afford life-saving medications, visit specialists, and undergo necessary medical procedures. 

Finally, both of these articles link oppressive conditions experienced in childhood to a predisposition to health problems later in life. When considering the precedent that can be set in the beginning years of one’s life, I draw a correlation to Crenshaw’s ”When Blackness Is a Preexisting Condition How modern disaster relief has hurt African American communities”. As Crenshaw states in her commentary of the Ethel Freeman case during hurricane Katrina; “people of color whose chances of survival were handicapped by generations of human-engineered disasters before they found themselves in the path of a natural one.” When your life has been a consistent battle for mere survival, your resiliency to thrive and rebute calamity is weakened. 

The sentiments in this week's articles echo those of Duncan-Andrade in his essay "Note to Educators: Hope Required When Growing Roses in Concrete". In his work, Duncan-Andrade speaks of the "socially toxic environments" and the chronic stress imposed upon those living under such conditions as a significant contributor to poor health. Duncan-Andrade argues that the basic levels in Maslow's hierarchy of human needs: food, clothing, and shelter, need to be met before higher needs, such as education can be. He suggests that teachers need to be willing to acknowledge the inequalities in their pedagogy for those students whose basic needs are consistently threatened. He believes that teachers need to offer more than just the notion that students can make their own destiny, a deferred hope. His position is that teachers need to work towards closing the gap for these students and offering critical hope by finding ways to draw connections between academics and the realities of student's lives. I, like Duncan-Andrade, believe that it is imperative for teachers to gear pedagogy towards social justice and not just concentrate on academic rigors.

In absorbing the content of this week’s articles, I find myself more contemplative of the world around me, and critical of what I am exposed through various types of media. While cooking dinner one evening, I heard a commercial for CVS proudly touting about their Flu Shot services. I was especially struck by the way the commercial postulated that the shot was available to all because “it can be free”.  The emphasis for me was on the “CAN” part. It prompted me to think “free for who?” Upon a bit of research, I discovered that not only at CVS but several other drugstores as well, it is free for those who can afford insurance. I was not able to find a link to the specific commercial for CVS I heard while cooking that night, but I was able to find a very similar one for Walgreens.

(Click the image below to view Walgreen's advertisement.)

 

I find these commercials to be misleading, and a disappointment to those who do not read the fine print when they arrive to receive their “free” flu shot. It seems to me, if an expensive service like insurance is required to take part in this offer, then it is not really free. Also, if marginalized populations are the most vulnerable, then they are the ones who truly need medical services like flu shots the most. To explore the actual cost of a flu shot for an uninsured individual click here. Although the title includes discounted or even free, I do not see a listing for the shot that does not include a price.