So, a republican congressman who was a doctor for 20 years plus just really said some foolish hateful stuff, imagine that! He said that poor people just did not care about their health, they engage in the least amount of prevention and/ or preventative medicine than any other group. I am just going to say it, what an ignorant, mother fucker! I can’t believe he has a medical degree. I have a public health masters degree and one of the first things we studied was issues such as- “blaming the victim” and the social determinants of health.
Disease prevention agencies and health CBO’s also fuel the idea that individuals alone are responsible for their health. They do this through the implementation of individual- level health programs. Individual level health programs are focused on changing individual behaviors. Social Marketing Campaigns often encourage individual level change as well as opposed to focusing on community and policy level changes which are equally important.
Too many people actually believe that large groups of poor actually would choose disease of health even with all the money and resources in the world.
People don’t choose to be unhealthy. They don’t decide to make choices that will put them in a hospital bed ill and unable to function. Sometimes it may look that way, but the truth is, its just not the way it is.
THE WORLD is not SIMPLE, PEOPLE ARE COMPLICATED! The social determinants of health are the conditions which people live grow work and age. I don’t know where this republican asshole missed that people are affected by more than individual health decisions.
“Based on a meta-analysis of nearly 50 studies, researchers found that social factors, including education, racial segregation, social supports, and poverty accounted for over a third of total deaths in the United States in a year.7 In the United States, the likelihood of premature death increases as income goes down. Similarly, lower education levels are directly correlated with lower income, higher likelihood of smoking, and shorter life expectancy.” 8
SO tired of the bullshit. I am so over the way we look at individual health decisions.
Comments