Prioritizing Health Care Inequalities

Question 1

Health

Answer 1

• a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and mot merely the absence of disease or infirmity.
  • health is socially constructed
  • Social forces are key in understanding health/illness social problems

Question 2

How our understanding of illnesses affects our responses

Answer 2

• Earliest conceptions of illness:
◦ Divine forces punished the immoral
◦ Product of unhealthy decisions
◦ Being in poverty/filthy conditions
• Focus on individualistic causes -> individualistic solutions

Question 3

Medicalization

Answer 3

Medical professionals taking control of an aspect of human life
◦ Sources: physicians, medical associations, pharma companies, patients

Question 4

Medicalization can be changed through

Answer 4

Demedicalization

Question 5

Demedicalization

Answer 5

When conditions previously perceived as medical problems no longer fall under the purview of medical institutions
◦ Example: APA and homosexuality as a mental illness

Question 6

Fundamental cause theory

Answer 6

• SES is a primary determinant of health across different social contexts

Question 7

The effects of SES on health explained through the fundamental cause theory

Answer 7

• exposure to stress
• exposure to toxins
• lack of access to high quality foods
• lack of access to health care

Question 8

Gender inequality and health

Answer 8

• women experience higher morbidity rates, men face higher mortality rates
• Differences causes and outcomes attributed to gender (not sex)
• Men likely to die of riskier behaviors

Question 9

Social isolation and health

Answer 9

• social isolation
• Vulnerable survivors affected by confluence of social events
• Can lead to heart disease and decreased cognitive function

Question 10

The U.S. healthcare system

Answer 10

The United States is the only global north country without a single-payer health care system
The United States has 3 sectors:
• Private: insurance through employer
• Public: Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare
• Voluntary: American Cancer Society, March of Dimes

Question 11

Medicaid versus Medicare

Answer 11

Medicare is available to anyone who is 65 or older, or under 65 and has a disability or certain conditions. Medicaid is available to people with limited income and resources. In Illinois, adults with incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty level are eligible for Medicaid

Question 12

Some larger issues with the U.S. health care system

Answer 12

• high procedure costs
• Less healthy life and life expectancy
• Inadequate universal health insurance coverage
• patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (Obamacare)
• Financial life impact

Question 13

What was the most affordable act cording to her

Answer 13

Patient protection and afforadable act (Obama care)

Question 14

Contested illnesses

Answer 14

Health conditions about which there is little or no consensus about their causes, symptomology, or treatment, which makes physicians reluctant to define them as physical illnesses

Question 15

Racial inequality and health

Answer 15

Affordable care act - helped to reduce racial and ethnic inequality in health care coverage across the world.
- however, people of color are much less likely than White U.S. residents to have health insurance

Question 16

Discriminatory medical practice

Answer 16

That racial minorities often get less adequate care than White patients do

Question 17

biomedicalization

Answer 17

the process through which health and illness are increasingly understood and managed through biomedical interventions