Thursday, August 27, 2009

Appalachia: Social inequities lead to health disparities

Great blog post by Dr. Norm Oliver at the University of Virginia

Health inequities abound in this country. I’ve used this site to speak out
against the health inequities inflicted upon African Americans, Latinos, and
other people of color; however, I’ve tried to make it clear here (and in other
writing) that it’s not only victims of racial discrimination who suffer from
health disparities but working people in general who bear an unequal burden of
sickness and death.

Nowhere is this fact more clear than among workers and working farmers in rural America. Take the coalfields of far southwestern Virginia, for example. Whereas the death rate in the state is 780/100,000, the rate in southwestern Virginia is more than 1,200/100,000. About 203/100,000 Virginians die of heart disease each year compared with about 340/100,000 in the Virginia coalfields. It’s the same with cancer deaths: statewide, 185/100,000 people die from solid tumor cancers; whereas in the state’s southwestern coalfields, some 260/100,000 die from those cancers.
Read more...

No comments:

Post a Comment

The Office of Minority Health and Health Equity (OMHHE) encourages you to add a comment to this discussion. All comments will be moderated and reviewed by OMHHE staff. You may not post any unlawful, threatening, defamatory, obscene, pornographic or other material that would violate the law. All comments should be relevant to the topic and remain respectful of other authors and commenters. By submitting your comment, you hereby give the OMHHE the right to reproduce or republish comments.

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.