Unnatural Causes free essay sample

Whereas, Tondra Young’s district, district 24, has an average combined household income of $70,000/annually and 15% of the population has a college degree. The life expectancy of district 24 is 75 years, that’s 7 years less than district 16. In district 21, Corey Anderson’s district, the average combined household income is less than $50,000/ annually and only 5% of the districts population have college degrees. Consequently, the life expectancy of district 21 is 70 years, 5 years less than district 24 and 12 years less than district 16 (Adelman 2008).The results of this study are indisputable: there is an obvious correlation between social/economic status and health status. As each districts average income and education level decrease, average life expectancy coincides. This leads to the next question: why does social and economic status so greatly influence health status? One could supply many obvious reasons for this correlation in health care; this correlation, as illustrated above, shows research-based evidence that being of lower economic and social standing places individuals at an increased risk for health complications. We will write a custom essay sample on Unnatural Causes or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The more obvious explanations for this occurrence could be that individuals with decreased economic and social status would have less access to health care related to diminished finances, or they would have unhealthy diets related to higher costs of healthy foods, or due to their lack of substantial education they would, in turn, lack in knowledge of health care practices. Oddly enough, these factors are not the major contributor. The reason for the correlation between health care and social/ economic status, which the documentary primarily focuses on, can be narrowed down to one culprit: stress.According to the documentary, it is the increased stress level in lower income population that accounts for the increase in morbidities. The result of chronic stress on the body is a chronic release of the body’s stress hormone: cortisol (Adelman 2008). When the body accumulates too much cortisol it leads to a decrease in immune system function and thus, creating an increase in sickness. Regardless of one’s social status or stress level, there is one more disturbing factor that prevents a person from achieving optimal health care: race.Racial discrimination has been linked with high blood pressure, increased rates of coronary artery disease and infant death. African Americans, for example, have higher rates of many chronic diseases and die earlier that Caucasians, regardless of the social gradient. In a National study it was found that over 83,000 excess deaths occurred per year in the African American community alone! â€Å"That’s the equivalent of a major airline filled with Black passengers falling out of the sky every single day, every year. † (Adelman 2008). There are many ways we can improve health care equity.The two main things we can do are to identify health determinants and create public health programs. Public health programs traditionally address population health through measures to prevent and control health problems; it is also important that they identify the structural and intermediate determinants that lead to ill health (CDC 2012). We as nurses can help with this approach as we are always observing and assessing. It is our jobs as nurses to identify social determinants in our patients and identify ways we can help them individually. For example, a patient has been prescribed ten different medications and the patient tells you she can only afford a few of them and will only take the important ones. It is our jobs to help this woman correctly identify which of the medications is indeed the most important. Nurses can always promote community health with programs such as: blood pressure screenings, maternity lectures etc. Making simple and affordable preventative care measure available to the community is the most important thing we can do to improve health!