Contributed by: Gary Lai
The following is Part II of Gary Lai’s investigation into the link between poverty and health outcomes. Part I is available here.
Economic Inequality and Health Inequality
There is a large array of political tools to advocate for the poor in the framework of The Canada Health Act (1984). For Example, Dennis Raphael, from York University, proposed a series of actions to reduce poverty and health inequality. He cited the Health of Canada’s Children Report, which reported a deep divide between the health of children who are poor and those who are not. Statistics Canada attributes 22% of mortality differences among Canadians to income differentials. In the University of Sussex’s Richard Wilkinson’s book Unhealthy Societies, he writes, “increasing economic inequality decreases social cohesion, increases individual malaise, and produces the conditions by which increased mortality and morbidity occur.” Raphael also mentioned that the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion included income as a basic prerequisite for health. He wrote that the public, organizations, and the government could respond to a public health issue like this through recognition of the impact of politics, government policy development and implementation, and community involvement on health.
Raphael is not the only scholar advocating a political solution. Deanna Williamson, of the University of Alberta, claimed that the health of individual Canadians in poverty requires a concerted effort to alter the “fundamental structural conditions contributing to poverty.” She suggested more research in this area. Continue reading “Improving Health Outcomes through Poverty Reduction: Part II”