The poor are getting poorer!

Being healthy is definitely associated with earning a high income, obtaining a higher education and living in clean and safe neighborhoods. Most importantly, a high income implies that you have privilege access to the health care system. In developing countries, there are strong relationships of people in poverty to less access to nutritious foods, education, and, needless to say, health care. Therefore, they are more prone to infectious diseases, high substance uses, unhealthful lifestyles and ultimately higher mortality rates. In developed countries like the U.S., it is no brainer to see poor people as less likely to be protected with health coverage and, in some cases, many people are even pushed to the poverty level due to high price tag of health insurance. I guess that the poorest people in the U.S. are the ones who are just above the federal poverty level under 65 years old, who do not qualify for any public health assistances like Medicaid and Medicare.

As I have mentioned above, the relationship between poverty and health is strong yet very complicated due to the facts including not only enduring financial impediment to health care but also living in poor environmental conditions, suffering or lack of awareness in needed medical care, and perhaps working in hazardous environment. Improvement on accessible and affordable health care services should be implemented to reduce the income disparities among the population. For instance, public health assistance may ease the income inequality for the poor to access health care. They can focus more on the underserved populations to minimize income disparities by establishing more public health clinics to provide basic care from immunization to preventive care at low cost. Also they can provide incentive for health care providers who work in underserved regions to promote better physician and patient ratio. In addition, providing the quality of education, improving their neighborhood and environment of employment for the poor will be beneficial to overcome income disparity in their health. According to Wilkinson’s article, many psychosocial factors are strongly linked to health such as social support and early-life support and stress from social deprivation. Therefore, we must approach income inequality on the health issue as multi-dimensional perspectives from psychosocial, economic and individual levels.