Public health, take two

Christian Century, June 19, 2002

PUBLIC HEALTH, TAKE TWO: Over 150 years ago the German physician Rudolf Virchow, who later founded the discipline of cellular pathology, was asked to study the causes of an outbreak of typhus in Bavaria. The major conclusion he came to was that "poor people were more susceptible to disease." In the years which have transpired since then, not much has changed.

Unfortunately, in the United States health data aren't gathered on the basis of income or class, so race and ethnicity serve as proxies for these variables. Hence, "today it has become clear that within the United States there are substantial differences between the access to care that people receive based on their race and ethnicity." Ironically, some research done at the macro level on the relationship between the overall distribution of wealth in societies and health has reached the conclusion that "where there is more equitable distribution of wealth, the overall health of the population is better," not just the health of the poor. "It is not a profit-driven system that keeps people in substandard living conditions and keeps them from getting adequate health care, it is the pursuit of social justice which is at fault" (Howard S. Berliner, Society, May/June).