WEALTH WITHOUT HEALTH: Economic Inequalities and the Social Determinants of Health

Description: Society takes for granted that the poor have poor health; following similar logic, one would expect the rich to have good health, but studies have shown this to be a false assumption.  Indeed, many argue that, above a threshold of income, the most important determinants of a population’s health are not the quality of health care available to an individual or an individual’s personal behavior, but rather the level of hierarchy in the society.  The larger the gap between the richest and the poorest, the worse a society’s health appears to be. How do we know this to be true? Why is this the case?  Knowing this, how can we decrease inequality and improve the health of our world?
 
Goal: In most discussions about what determines health, we ignore the single most important factor - socioeconomic disparity.  People in the community need to shift their focus onto these societal elements if we want to improve the overall health of our world.  This panel will explore ways to expand and act on these ideas.  

 

Panelists:

Maureen McCue, MD PhD

---

 

Donna Barry, RN, NP, MPH

---

Donna Barry, NP MPH, is currently the Advocacy and Policy Director at Partners In Health (PIH) where she began working in 2001.  Previously she led the PIH project to treat multi-drug resistant tuberculosis in Russia and was Co-Director of PIH’s women’s health programs in Haiti.  She is guiding PIH’s advocacy and policy efforts related to health and hunger, socio-economic development in Haiti, increasing the pool of funding for global health and health system strengthening.  She has participated in briefings and hearings on Capitol Hill regarding reproductive health, debt relief in Haiti, childhood malnutrition, tuberculosis, and funding for global health.  A Nurse Practitioner with certifications in women’s and adult health, Donna also supports PIH’s nursing activities and provides clinical and program advice to PIH’s women’s health programs.

She earned degrees in Political Science and Russian at Saint Louis University, and then went on to Columbia University in New York, where she earned Masters’ Degrees in International Affairs and Public Health.  She completed her RN and Masters of Science in Nursing at the MGH Institute of Health Professions.  Donna is very active in local and national Democratic Party organizing and is a long-time member of the American Public Health Association’s International Health Section.  She currently represents this section on APHA’s Advisory Board.   

 

 

 

 

Martin Donohoe, MD, FACP

---

Martin Donohoe is Adjunct Associate Professor in Community Health at Portland State University, practices internal medicine, and was Chief Scientific Advisor to Oregon PSR’s Campaign for Safe Food. He received his BS and MD from UCLA, completed internship and residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and was a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at Stanford University. He teaches courses in medical humanities, public health, social justice ethics, and women’s studies. His slide shows, articles, and syllabi can be found at http://www.publichealthandsocialjustice.org or http://www.phsj.org.