Week 4 Reading Thoughts- Elena

No matter how many times I hear the statistic and see the graph, it never ceases to amaze me that the U.S. spends by far the most of its GDP on health care, and yet our health outcomes (measured several ways, including infant mortality and life expectancy) rank far below those of other countries who spend a much lower percentage of their GDP on health care. Where is all our money going? How can this statistic exist while the government, and the population, has not yet made some drastic changes that we need to make to our health care system? The discovery that the definition of the word "health" needed to be expanded to include occupation, socio-economic status, and other contributors to physical and mental well-being happened a while ago; so why is it taking us so long to react to reduce disparities of social class, race, ethnicity, and overall health? Well, that task is obviously easier said than done, and I think one of the greatest difficulties is to decide whose job it is. Maybe doctors, who are called "health care professionals" are supposed to oversea everything that influences a person's health. But when it comes to lifestyle factors like divorce rates, moving rates, and substance use rates, is it possible for anybody to oversee and try to change them? What I think is fascinating about the relationship between socio-economic status and health is that it is continuous. This makes it relevant for everybody! I can't say that the poorest of the poor have terrible health, the richest of the rich have amazing health, and everybody in between has decent health. Each higher level of socio-economic status correlates with a little bit better health. I hope that this correlation makes everybody realize how important it is to eliminate disparities in socio-economic status.