“Even if we are rich, college-educated, white-skinned, and practice all
the right health behaviors,” he notes, “similar people in other rich
nations will live longer.”
To really understand America’s poor health standing globally,
epidemiologists like Bezruchka posit, we need to look at those social
and economic realities that define our daily lives, what scientists call
“the social determinants of health.”
And none of these determinants matter more, these researchers
contend, than economic inequality, the divide between the affluent and
everyone else. Over 170 studies worldwide
have so far linked income inequality to health outcomes. The more
unequal a modern society, the studies show, the more unhealthy most
everyone in it — and not the poor alone.
http://www.alternet.org/surprising-reason-americans-are-far-less-healthy-others-developed-nations?page=0%2C1&akid=10840.294211.cVRsfR&rd=1&src=newsletter886340&t=7
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