In America, most of the population are getting sick easily and dying at young ages. Why is that? People think it is due to bad health habits such as eating unhealthy, smoking, not exercising, etc. However, there is so much more to that. America, one of the wealthiest industrialized nations in the world, is in the midst of a public health crisis marked by rising levels of chronic illness and premature death. This is due to inequality on the basis of class, race, and gender as well as stress being unequally distributed in the social hierarchy. The film Unnatural Causes (2008), "Can Upward Mobility Cost You Your Health?" (Miller 2014), "Health and Wealth" (Jacobs and Morone 2004), and “Closing the Wealth Gap” (Kuebler 2013) are four sources that …show more content…
The film, Unnatural Causes, states that social class determines your health. “Health and Wealth” backs up that statement by saying, “The wider the inequality, the worse the nation’s overall health” (Jacobs and Morone 2004). This also is due to a lack of health care and “how medical costs are raising faster than personal income growth” (Jacobs and Morone 2004). People who have wealth can afford health care, unlike some people who are at the bottom of the social class who cannot afford health care. What about the people who are climbing up the social ladder? In the film and in the article, “Can Upward Mobility Cost You Your Health” (Miller, Chen, Brody 2014) both state that climbing up the social class hierarchy gives people more risk of health issues than people who are at the bottom of the social class. “Can Upward Mobility Cost Your Health” is a study proving that climbing up the hierarchy gives people more risk of health issues. They were studying people who were 11 years old and kept track of them until 19 years old. These students were resilient they did not do drugs, they did well in school, and did not get in trouble. The researchers were thinking that their health issues will decrease as they climb up the social class but that was not the case. The people in the study had more stress hormones and had higher blood pressure. They were worse than the 11-year-old kids who were not resilient and were troubled (Miller, Chen, Brody