The Wealth-Health Gradient
The Wealth-Health Gradient
I’ve been watching a four part program on PBS called “Unnatural Causes”. This series explores the relationship between social status and health in America. Disturbing conclusive statistics reveal a gradient scale that is predictive of lifespan based on the income level of an individual. Much of this information is not surprising however the immediate relationship and seemingly inevitable and unavoidable consequences is disconcerting. One who has greater economic status certainly has access to greater resources, education, healthier eating, reduced stress and leisure opportunities and this could be sensibly predictive of a certain degree of better well being; however the studies presented show the difference between income brackets can reduce a lifespan by several years – and the most extreme differential was more than ten years. My immediate reaction was to consider that an individual within any bracket could overcome such issues with a greater attention to self care or otherwise affect their own outcome through choice and free will, but in the case of those who live on lower hierarchical posts – the effect of subjective power is highly limited. The chemical reaction of stress on the brain in children and adults is permanently damaging and suppresses the immune system. This stress – while something encountered by all human beings – seems to fall into different categories based on the individual experience with the world. Stress as a CEO with ultimate control is different than stress as a middle class working professional a little lower on the hierarchy and then again different as someone who struggles to meet basics needs. Freedom of choice and economic autonomy were specific indicators of the quality of stress. The studies made such direct connections to potentiality for disease as renting vs. owning a home, job status and power, and completed level of education. The situation is so dire that there is a possibility in America that the current children will be the first generation to live shorter lives than their parents.
This information is important in terms of many of our readings in this program, but especially in relation to the idea of environmental influence, predetermination and internal will power and choice. The collective society that allows for an extreme discrepancy between wealthy and poor produces individuals of social dependency, ill health and low production value. Knowing this as well as the information provided by Damasio – how much power do we actually have over our minds and sense of self? I happily abandoned my childhood romantic notion of “destiny” and devoured many of these readings as further indication of our individual power to determine our quality and specific path of life. That being said however, the information piling up against my self help mantra is weakening the argument. It may not be a God who determines the path of life we follow, but with economics, demographic, marital status, neural fire accidents, emotional overload, fatigue, stress, broken hearts, head injuries, hormones, life experience, pollution and chemicals, a degrading natural environment, earthquakes and tsunamis; have we a free will that is a feeble force against it all?
I scoffed at the likes of Werther and Bovary for their individual futility to aquire a happy outcome. I scoffed at my own self for the same. We must be personally accountable, no? I am left again to make a wager that balances informed but uncertain caution with personal empowerment. Certainly I jest even further here to make a point – that for me, predeterminism is as undeterminable as free will. If I could settle on an answer I could apply my self to making some personal choices – but perhaps that is also merely a weakness of brain chemistry. An imbalance of Reason over Emotion or vice versa. Passion revealing itself as reactive to circumstance.
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