In a TED
Talk, Richard Wilkinson states, “People in richer areas live anywhere from 5 to
12 or even 14 years longer than people in poor areas”. As we can see from this
quote, income inequality kills. It kills the innocent lives of those who are
unfortunate enough to live in these poor areas and lose 5 to 14 years of their
life. To me, this is unfair, and undoubtedly this is unfair to everyone. Life
is priceless. Inequality is killing the adults that live in these areas, and we
cannot let this continue on any longer. By highlighting the income inequality
between the low income and high income class, it will bring to light how income
inequality affects cardiovascular health, leading to death. In this article, I
will analyze Martinson’s works and findings on income inequality in health at
all ages, but focusing on males age 35+ as the baseline for this article as
adult age. I will also analyze Wilkinson’s works and findings on income inequality
and mortality rates, this time using age 25+ as the baseline.
To begin
with, I will highlight the income inequality that exists between the lower and
the upper class families as found in Martinson’s study. For the 20th
percentile, the US household income was $20,262; whereas the 95th
percentile was $186,000. The difference between this is an astonishing
$165,738. By highlighting this important statistic, I will be able to explain
to you why income inequality is such an important factor in adult health. With
more resources, one is able to get more from their resources; whereas someone
with little can only get little. With $20,262, one can only get that much in
resources; the person with $165,738 can get that much in resources, the
difference is amazing. With the baseline for income inequality established for
the 20th and 95th percentile – the low and high income
class – we will now discuss the prevalence of cardiovascular problems in each
group.
Looking
again at Martinson’s findings, the prevalence rate of diabetes in the age
groups of 35-49, 50-64, and 65-80 is greater in the low income than the high
income class. Comparing the 35-49 groups, the lower income class had a 7.7%
prevalence rate whereas the high income had a 3.5% prevalence rate. The 50-64
age groups were 17% and 8.3% prevalence rate. And the 65-80 age groups were
19.6% and 10.2% prevalence rate. As we can see from this data, the low income
group had a higher prevalence rate for diabetes as compared to the high income
group. Interpreting this data introduces multiple risk factors that induce the
different groups to produce this behavior. With the low income group, they had
less money and therefore had fewer resources to prevent diabetes. With low
income families, they are more likely to partake in behavior that may not be
very healthy for themselves, because they are unable to get the resources to
maintain a healthy diet due to money restrictions. As said by Martinson,
“Smoking was most prevalent among low-income individuals and least prevalent
among high-income people”. The use of tobacco for an individual can increase
their blood sugar levels and that will lead to insulin resistance. Therefore,
the more one smokes, the more they risk themselves to developing diabetes. This
quote shows the statistic that low-income individuals will partake in behaviors
that are detrimental to their health. Martinson also highlights the insurance
rate of those in the United States, being one-third of low-income individuals are
uninsured and only 6% of high-income was uninsured. By having insurance, an
individual will be able to treat their illnesses early on, and this applies to
diabetes as well. With enough money, people will be able to take care of
themselves and afford the care that they need in order to prevent the onset of
diabetes.
There are
also other statistics that stand out in Martinson’s research, which include
heart attack rates and stroke rates. Looking at the age groups of 50-64 and
65-80 for heart attack rates, we can see that the first age group has a 13%
rate for low-income and a 5.8% rate for high-income. For the 65-80 age groups,
there is a 26.8% for the low-income and a 16.1% for high-income individuals. The
explanation for this is found in Martinson’s research, where he explains that
early detection systems and pre-screenings for heart problems exist to those of
the high-income class; more so for those who can afford the care. The stroke
rate for the age groups of 65-80 is 10.6% for low-income and 6.1% for high-income.
Although the difference in the stroke rate is not drastic, the difference still
remains that we can see a gap that exists between the low-income and
high-income group in terms of their health. The underlying reason and main
factor behind this is better healthcare and treatment by those who have the
money to get the best treatment around. Although it is hard to understand,
high-income individuals have it made, in that they will live longer than those
in the low-income group because they receive the best care for the money that
they put in. These statistics of diabetes, heart attack and stroke prevalence
rate highlight the disparity that exists between low and high-income groups. What
comes last in life is death, and by understanding that health problems are more
prevalent in low-income groups than high-income groups is because of income
inequality, it will be easier to understand why death comes easier to the
low-income group.
Transitioning
over to Wilkinson’s work on Income Inequality and Socioeconomic Gradients in
Mortality, we will come to understand the statistics of death due to the
categories of All Causes, Ischemic Heart Disease, and Respiratory Disease. For
the mortality rate on All Causes, the age group defined here is the working age
– 25 to 64 years old. For this test, Wilkinson used a multilevel analysis of
state-level income and income inequality versus mortality rate to find the
interaction value between the two. This produced a significant value that would
be compared to a P value and would either reject or fail to reject the original
hypothesis. The original hypothesis would be that there is no interaction
between the two, whereas the alternative hypothesis finds that there is an
interaction between the two. For all three categories of All Causes, Ischemic
Heart Disease, and Respiratory Disease, the significant value would reject the
hypothesis for all three and would therefore find that there is an interaction
between income inequality and mortality rates. The explanation behind this
would be explained by Martinson’s findings, that low-income groups partake in
behavior that is detrimental to their health, such as smoking – which leads to
respiratory disease. And the failure to screen for heart disease due to income
inequality to prevent the onset of any heart problems would explain the onset
of ischemic heart disease. Again, we can see here that money provides for the
best care and screening that one needs in order to detect diseases and
illnesses before it is too late. From all of this, we can link Wilkinson’s
findings to show that income inequality does indeed lead to death. With his
findings on the interaction level between income inequality and mortality
rates, we are able to highlight that low-income families are at a higher risk to
die than high-income families. This is because the low-income families are not
able to afford the care that they need whereas the high-income families can.
Money is what widens the gap between the two in terms of their health.
In
conclusion, we were able to establish the income levels for each group and
therefore continue on with our discussion. We can draw from Martinson’s
findings the rate at which different age groups and income levels have
diabetes, and how the different income level’s behaviors affect this. By
partaking in high-risk behaviors such as smoking, low-income individuals put
themselves in a position where they will develop heart disease. Wilkinson’s
findings then related all of the information into an analysis of how income
inequality does in fact lead to death. We are then able to confirm that income
inequality between the low and high-income groups leads to the death of the
low-income group. This disparity will continue to exist, and many more will
continue to die. To put this into perspective, the difference is 5-14 years. To
anyone humane, the amount of years lost should not justify the income
inequality that exists today.
Reference List
Martinson, M. L. (2012). Income
Inequality in Health at All Ages: A Comparison of the United States and
England. American Journal Of Public Health, 102(11), 2049-2056. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2012.300929
Wilkinson, R. G., & Pickett, K.
E. (2008). Income inequality and socioeconomic gradients in
mortality. American Journal Of Public Health,98(4), 699-704.
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