Critique of Disease and Disadvantage in the United States and England In the 2006 article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Disease and Disadvantage in the United States and England by Banks et al, it was found that those residing in England are healthier than United States (US) residents. To control for racial disparities the study was limited to White individuals. 4 surveys were used to extrapolate and assess data measures. Surveys from England included the English Longitudinal Survey on Aging (ELSA) and 3 years of the Health Survey for England (HLS). US surveys were the Health Retirement Survey (HRS) and the National Health Interview Survey (NHANES).1
The combination of these 4 surveys were used to assess biological measures and self-reported health status. ELSA and HRS were used to compare biological measures and HSE and NHANES were used to compare self-reported health status. There was a variance in age of respondents between surveys, with some capturing individuals ranging in age from 55-64 and 40-70 years of age. This indicates that data was not directly matched and looked generally at epidemiological outcomes via correlation coefficients and using Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) models and STATA statistical software version 9.1
Years of schooling, risk factors including alcohol consumption, smoking, and weight were included in the assessment. Further, self-reports of disease diagnosis and comparison of self versus clinical
The article is from the American Journal of Public health and provides surveys, graphs and statistics. The article has multiple authors and they are all in the medical field or professors that work at high prestige Universities like Harvard or Northwestern University.It was last modified on February of 2013.The article is a peer review journal and because of the credentials of the authors it seems reliable and credible
In the contemporary world, America is one of the greatest countries. From the polio vaccine to Coca Cola, United States is mother to many inventions. As Americans, we enjoy higher quality living standards than most other parts of the world. This pleasure-oriented lifestyle makes a lot of other nations envious of us. And with the envy comes antipathy. For the time it has existed, the American healthcare system has been a subject of scrutiny and debate.
Socio-economic class or socio-economic status (SES) may refer to mixture of various factors such as poverty, occupation and environment. It is a way of measuring the standard and quality of life of individuals and families in society using social and economic factors that affect health and wellbeing ( Giddens and Sutton, 2013). Cockerham (2007 p75) argues: ‘Social class or socioeconomic status (SES) is the strongest predictor of health, disease causation and longevity in medical sociology.’ Research in the 1990s, (Drever and Whitehead, 1997) found out that people in higher SES are generally healthier, and live longer than those in lower SES.
It is highly known that there is a difference in social classes, culture and socio-economic lifestyles between the north and south of England. This ranges from the accessibility of treatments, the range of income and life expectancy and also morbidity and mortality rates.
Good health for all people has turned out to be an acknowledged global objective and the records reveal that there have been extensive achievements in life expectancy over the past century. However, there has been persistence in health disproportions between affluent and deprived despite the fact that the prospects for upcoming health trends depend more and more on the latest processes of globalization. In the previous times, globalization has frequently been observed as an economic process comparatively. At the present times, however, it is progressively perceived as a wide-ranging trend fashioned by a multitude of aspects and incidents that are restructuring and changing the format of our society swiftly (Huynen, Martens & Hilderink, 2005).
One of the major areas for discrepancies in health outcomes with age exists across differing ethnic and racial groups. Trends in the research show that groups of individuals who belong to an ethnic or racial minority tend to have more negative health outcomes. Higher mortality and poorer morbidity for African Americans is consistently found compared to non-Hispanic white populations (Smedley et al., 2003). Moreover, mortality rates tend to be lower in foreign-born Hispanics and Asian immigrants to the United States compared to Americans born in the United States (Palloni & Arias, 2004; Hummer, Benjamins, & Rogers, 2004). This finding has been attributed partially to selective migration and return migration in older adulthood.
Throughout history, many conflicts have arisen from the differences between races and ethnicities. These conflicts have resulted from one population, historically the white American population, wanting more power over another population, more often the African American population. From these power struggles, racism and discrimination developed and were even more strengthened from the development of slavery in the US and further on with segregation in the 1900s. From slavery, segregation, and racism, health disparities developed in the African American population that have continued to this day. African Americans generally have a shorter life expectancy than whites, but a recent discovery, entitled the minority crossover, has changed the understanding of health disparities in elderly populations. The minority crossover phenomenon refers to the growing elderly African American population and increase in life expectancy of this group over white Americans.
Life expectancy, or the estimated years of life for a person or group of people, has increased over the years but it is still surprisingly lower than expected in places such as the United States. America ranks twenty-fourth on the life expectancy list under Japan, Australia, France Spain and Italy. What causes this disparity in the ranking and statistics in an advanced industrialized society such as the United States? There are major statistical factors that influence the United States ranking in world life expectancy, involving education level, poverty, race and gender. The diverse groups of people living in the United States affect the health statistics negatively, bringing in influences from education and income levels, race and
Evidence show that people from lower class backgrounds and ethnic minority’s backgrounds are more likely to suffer more health problems to the majority ethnic group this shows a pattern of inequality.
Summary: Despite Cardiff and Leicester having very similar populations, there are vast differences in regards to the two cities’ state of health. Cardiff and Leicester display a similar level of both smoking and alcohol consumption, however, the data collected shows that Cardiff has a significantly higher life expectancy in comparison to Leicester. Leicester’s population is largely more physically active than that of Cardiff’s, with 20% more adults engaging in regular exercise. In addition, Leicester has fewer overweight adults as well as a lower rate of adult obesity when compared to Cardiff. Furthermore, Leicester is significantly more deprived than Cardiff, the correlation of this data as a whole may suggest that deprivation could
With the huge diversity and changeability of human biology, it is impossible to imagine a reality without some mutations, changes, or issues in the organs and tissues of humans. Thus, it rightly follows that medications and pharmaceuticals have been created in an effort to counteract the various ailments and illnesses that people can experience. However, as time has gone on and these pharmaceuticals have become more and more high-tech, regulated, and trusted, they have also become incredibly commercialized. Worse still, medications have become incredibly expensive and can be unattainable for some people.
Results: The study evaluated 22,599 samples representing 503,374,648 weighted individuals nationally from 2005-2008. Average age was 49 years, female 57%, Caucasian 83%, and the greatest percentage were from the South region of United States of America (36.8%).
Inequalities in health still exist and are mainly blamed on the stratification system in the UK. The Black Report suggested there were 4 main reasons for this:
The two groups that tested and confirmed the relationship between income inequality and health using international data in 1996 were from Universities of Harvard and Michigan. They looked if the same relationship was also prevalent in 50 states of USA. [Kaplan et al., 1996; Kennedy et al., 1996]
The research focused on the integration of various phases with the aim of achieving the goals and objectives in relation to the research questions. In the first phase, the research study integrated Statistical Packages for the Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 17.0. The main objective of this statistical analysis tool was to offer critical analysis to the quantitative evaluation results of the experts in the context of the advisory panel (Chen et al, 2011). The research study also focuses on the integration of descriptive statistics in relation to the mean and standard deviation in illustration of the consensus of the experts in the case of the proposed health indicators. The researcher focused on the incorporation of the revised, analyzed, and summarized qualitative suggestions into the health indicator list.