Unnatural Causes Essay

Words: 1064
Pages: 5
Open Document
Contrary to what many people believe, America’s health status is not quite “up-to-par,” to say the least. Over forty-seven million people in the United States lack health insurance; that is more than 15% of our nation’s population! At first this disturbing truth seems impossible to believe, being as America is one of the most technologically advanced and economically developed countries in the world. “We spend trillions of dollars per year on medical care. That’s nearly half of all the health dollars spent in the world. But we’ve seen our statistics. We live shorter, often sicker lives than almost every other industrialized nation. “We rank 30th in [global] life expectancy” (Adelman 2008). Knowing this brings rise to the question: why are …show more content…
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
Show More

Related Documents: Unnatural Causes Essay

Unnatural Causes Summary

The Unnatural Causes video series consists of several videos that discusses the health disparities that affect the American life every day. There is more to our life and future outcomes than how much exercise we receive or what our diet consists of. Our social circumstances can have a great effect on our future by dictating how we live, our time availability, and our financial resources to live. This series gave me a great insight into how intense the health disparities are throughout America. It…

Words 986 - Pages 4

Unnatural Causes Analysis

determinants such as income, housing, and crime have a great prediction toward the health of an individual. Learning that so many severe and impacting diseases and injuries arise from poor environments and conditions are very sad. After watching Unnatural Causes, health inequities are unjust because they are directly related to wealth inequalities. In most cases, the health and stress of poor individuals could be helped or prevented, which creates very unfortunate situations. People that have…

Words 1327 - Pages 6

Unnatural Cause Documentary Analysis

I believe that the environment in which we live has an enormous impact on our health. According to the Unnatural Cause Documentary (UCD) when Immigrants come to the US, they are on average healthier than their native- born American. But the longer they stay, the worse they are on a measure such as heart disease, hypertension diabetes obesity. In fact, part of it has to do with their inexperience with the US society and it complex health care system. Many immigrant lack of health insurance, according…

Words 353 - Pages 2

Unnatural Causes: When The Bough Breaks

black women. African American women also have higher rates of infant mortality than other ethnicities. In the beginning of the quarter, we watched a video called Unnatural Causes: When the Bough Breaks. This video discussed how African Americans women are most likely to give birth to premature babies. Studies were done to find the cause…

Words 253 - Pages 2

After Watching The Unnatural Cause Analysis

Personally, from my point of view, after watching the Unnatural Causes, I strongly agree to the statement that the narrator states, “Written into our bodies is a lifetime of experience – shaped by social conditions often even more powerful than our genes”. I agree to the fact that social conditions are more often affective towards your health than genes. Why? Because, we are what we think and how we visualize effects around us. With that, they make many assumptions on how the poor are living under…

Words 219 - Pages 1

Unnatural Causes: The White Hall Study

According to the series Unnatural causes: is inequality making us sick, the White Hall study was conducted in 1970s to study how social structure affects health and disease (Aldeman & Smith, 2008). The findings revealed that those who had standard paycheck to paycheck jobs had a higher rate of disease and mortality compared to those who had higher paying jobs with six figures. There seemed to be a common trend of the lower the employment status, the sicker a person is. The study also revealed some…

Words 1464 - Pages 6

Tohono O Odham: Video Analysis

video episode of Unnatural Causes covered the prevalence, potential causes and some possible remedial actions regarding the development of diabetes in the Tohono O’odham people of Southern Arizona. In the video, it was put forth that the Tohono O’odham have demonstrated a rate of type 2 diabetes that has been the highest in the world over the last four decades, that half of the adults in this group have diabetes and the rate among children is continuing to climb (Unnatural Causes, 2008). A genetic…

Words 530 - Pages 3

Jnvkzjnvkdj Ak Dfakf H Essay

fact that this "justness" only causes unneeded deaths. Danforth's pride causes him to be blind toward his blatant hypocritical accusations. Another main character that inherits the contagious disease of hypocrisy in Salem is Reverend Paris. When told that his niece, Betty, is in such dire condition because of "unnatural causes," Paris quickly explains, "No--no. There be no unnatural causes here. Let him look to medicine and put out all thought of unnatural causes here. There be none," (9).…

Words 499 - Pages 2

Crucible Essay

the need to conserve it. For example, when Betty was discovered ill, Parris sent for the doctor, who informed him through Susanna Walcott that he needed to look to unnatural causes for the cause of it. To this he responds, “No-no. There be no unnatural cause here. … Let him look to medicine and put out all thought of unnatural causes here. There be none.” (9) By saying this, Parris shows his concern for how Betty’s poor health will affect his social standing if it is deemed to be witchcraft-related…

Words 821 - Pages 4

Fear In Lord Of The Flies

it may even cause one to act irrationally and unnaturally. Death is one of the most prevalent unknowns among humans, causing a large fear of the future. In the novel Lord of the Flies, fear of the unknown is one of the most prominent themes of the book. In the novel, it shows that although fear of the unknown is a natural human trait, it causes people to act in unnatural ways. The theme “Fear of the Unknown”, in the novel Lord of the Flies, is meant to make people act in unnatural ways. An example…

Words 2307 - Pages 10