Sixty years ago people in the US could boast being among the healthiest. Health has improved profoundly since then, but other nations have seen greater changes in the same time so now health of people in the US stand in the second tier of nations behind the other rich countries and some poorer ones. Our health is on a par with Cuba, a nation that has been strangled by the US for decades. We deserve to be healthier. Why aren't we?
People commonly think it is health care that produces health. Having access to health care is important for treating injuries and illnesses, but it is not the critical factor in producing health in populations. The US spends close to half of the world's health care bill and doesn't do well in health indicators compared to many other nations. Having universal health care for the nation is important but it won't make us healthier.
Personal behaviors are similarly not as important as we think. Yes, they matter, but not that much.
The economic policies within countries that determine how the resources of a nation are used play the major role in making a society healthy. Where a few are very rich and many face economic limitations and feel disadvantaged, health outcomes will not be as good as in more egalitarian nations where concepts of social and societal justice prevail. Cultures that foster caring and sharing have better health.
Since a large fraction of our health as adults is determined between conception and before we go to school, societies that support early life are healthier.
The United States has the most wealth and the most poverty of all rich nations. This gap and the policies it fosters, encouraging market solutions to societal problems, is responsible for our relatively poor health status.
Bringing awareness to these concepts to change policies to produce health is the challenge for this century. In recent decades prevailing lack of wisdom continues to increase the gap between those who have too much and everyone else.
Producing health is a matter of creating awareness of these concepts and getting action to create healthy societies by decreasing inequality.
