Effects of Race, Education and Gender on health conditions
There are several factors that affect the health conditions of a person. In this paper, race, education and gender are discussed as some of the factors affecting health conditions in the United States.
Effects of race on health condition
Race is basically a societal construct, i.e. it has meaning just because the society has given it meaning which has its impacts and consequences. It affects the health status as well as health care. Great disparities are witnessed in several countries, in United States for instance, life expectancy is 26 years more compared to that of Haiti, the death rate from diabetes of the Indian Americans is at 27.8 100,000 compared to 7.3 for the whites which is 380% higher. During pregnancy, black women are three times more likely to die than white women and four times likely to die during child birth. Data on institutional racism in the United States is manifested in a number of different ways. The research from the United States clearly shows that racial discrimination may result to barriers to quality health care, lack of economic access to health care, inadequate inclusion in health care research etc. for instance, compared to whites, blacks are more likely to require medical services but are not likely to receive them, whites are more likely to receive surgery than non-whites and it also takes a lot of time for non-whites to receive nursing home placements than whites. Researchers concluded that, doctors are more aggressive when treating whites than people with color.
Effects of education on health conditions
There is a very big difference between health and education. This has been observed in different countries at different time periods and a wide variety of health measures. The difference between those who have high education standards and those with less is quite significant. A research done in 1999 showed that the mortality rate of those who dropped out of school between the ages of 24 and 64 is more than twice of those who attended college. Data from the National Longitudinal Mortality Study (NLMS) shows that life expectancy is increased by 0.18 years when one takes a one more year of education this is by using a 3% discount or 0.6 years without using any discounts. The causal effects of education on health would require subsidies on education only when there is a market failure and of individuals is at sub-optimal levels. Other reports show that the more educated people have a lower morbidity from most acute and chronic diseases (heart condition, cholesterol, ulcer, diabetes, and asthma attacks), hypertension, emphysema or diabetes. They also report lesser days in bed and have fewer functional limitations. An addition of four more years of education reduces five year mortality by 1.8%, risk of heart diseases by 2.16% and diabetes by 1.3%. it also reduces the chances of reporting poor health by 6% and lost days of work by 2.3% every year.
Effects of gender on health
Gender is a basic social stratifier that both interacts with and is influenced by many other aspects of society. This social stratification between the sexes, leads to differential access to all parts of society be it jobs, health care, or discriminatory policies.
This differential treatment that men and women experience manifest itself in a different way among the sexes and could assist in explaining some of the differences in health that appear among women and men. Along with these societal factors, biology itself plays a role in helping to explain some of the differences that we find between men and women. As a result of men and women’s inherent biological differences, women and men do not seem to suffer from the same types of diseases and do not react in the same manner to them. One of the most basic statistics that exemplifies this is the average life expectancy. In the United States, the average life expectancy for a male born in 2000 was 74.1 years. The average life expectancy for females at birth at was 79.5. (National Vital Statistics Reports, Vol. 51, No. 3). This shows that women generally live 5.4 years longer than men. However, when it comes to illness, or morbidity, women often report higher levels of illness than men. This results in increased life expectancy for women but not necessarily in better health. This is summed up by an expression “women get sick and men die.”
Rather than being forced to choose one side or the other it is important to look at the interaction that societal factors have with biological factors that result in the variations in health that we find amongst women and men.
Reference
Les picker, Effects of education on health. Retrieved from m.nber.org//digest/mar07/w12352.html
Vernellia R. Randall, Why Age Matters.Retrieved from Academic.udayton.edu/health/03access/data.html
Gender effects on health.Retrieved from https://sph.uth.edu/course/occupational_envHealth/bamick.doc>
