Unnatural Causes: The White Hall Study

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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 interesting theories on health and wellness. For instance, one of the theories was that the factors smoking, blood pressure, overweight, and sedentary lifestyle are only a small part in the reason for the differences seen in disease and mortality …show more content…
During this time, hormones are released into the blood stream to increase heart rate, blood pressure, and alertness. At the same time, cortisol is released into the blood stream to increase the level of glucose in the body for energy. During times of great stress, all of these factors are needed to help a person overcome their stressful situation.
According to the film Unnatural causes: is inequality making us sick, a normal stress response should spike up and then go back down when not needed (aldermen &Smith, 2008). Chronic stress is different from the fight or flight response because it is a state of constant elevated awareness. Chronic stress is a state of constant high levels of hormones seen during the fight or flight response.
Stress is a natural part of everyday life. According to the film, everyone experiences stress even the well off. However, constant or chronic stress increase the risk of illness and disease in several ways, especially if an individual lacks the means to help control constant stress. First off, stress increses the level of cortisol in the body, thus increasing the levels of glucose constantly in the blood stream. Constant levels of glucose leads to increased chances of developing diabetes type two, overweight, and obesity. Also, according to the film “ chronic cortisal levels can impair immune function, inhibit memory, …show more content…
Also, in addition to this, African Americans are the minority in medical fiends such as nursing, PA, and so forth. Everyday racism affects health in many ways. As mentioned before, racism can have a physical effect on health including leading to high levels of cortisol, increased heart rates, and increased blood pressure that lead to health problems such as diabetes. Also, having structural racism leads to less power that the African Americans have over their daily lives due to worse paying jobs and lower levels of eduation. According to the film, having the power to control ones destiny is essential for decreased stress levels and also having the means to take care of chronically high stress levels (Aldeman & Smith, 2008). To conclude, structural racism decreases the power that African Americans have over their income and it also increases stress. These two factors lead to worse health levels throughout
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