In February of this year, I hired a personal trainer and got back to working out on a regular basis. I’ve lost weight, gained muscle and flexibility – and still look like a middle aged suburbanite. Ah well, I didn’t pay extra for the movie-star makeover (yes, I’m just kidding). Shallow vanity aside, this is a photo taken of me today. It may not look like much to you but I know how much I’ve improved. I’m pretty darned proud!
So, yeah, I’m bragging! 🙂
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Although the tipping point is often the loss of a job, sickness or injury often precede it. Sickness and injuries make holding a job difficult, which leads to income declining and homelessness for those without a safety net. Due to the mostly employer-based health insurance coverage system in the U.S., no job means no health insurance. The combination of unemployment and poor health can then lead to financial ruin. Nerdwallet estimated that 57.1 percent of U.S. personal bankruptcies are due to medical bills, making it the leading cause of the financial calamity that often precedes homelessness.
We can learn from how one doctor addressed hunger, another so-called health-related social issue or “social determinant of health.” Decades ago, Jack Geiger founded the first federally funded community-health center in the U.S. There, he began giving impoverished patients prescriptions for food using its pharmacy funds. Nervous about this practice, federal officials tried to stop him, but Geiger responded, “The last time we looked in the book, the specific therapy for malnutrition was food.”
The specific therapy for homelessness and its associated health issues is housing.
–How Health and Homelessness are Connected—Medically: This doctor examines the web of medical conditions that lead to and compound homelessness, and vice versa, The Atlantic, 01/25/2016, written by Seiji Hayashi
Jennifer Brea has been suffering from an un-treatable and not-yet-properly-identified neurological disease. She has been given diagnosis (e.g.: chronic fatigue syndrome) that basically mean nothing and was told it was ‘all in her head.’ This woman has been through the proverbial fire.
Yet, despite extremely difficult physical and social barriers, she has persevered, created a film about her experiences and pursued a life of activism, acting as a voice for all people suffering from invisible and un-diagnosed illnesses.
From her TED talk, you can see her strength, attitude and remarkable good will, as she expresses her hope that one day the medical community will learn how to face a disease like her own and speak the honest truth: I don’t know what is wrong with you.
I have to agree with her statement that this ability to be able to admit to not having an answer is a key step in eventually finding an answer.
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“How are you feeling?” Xie asked.
“Ridiculous,” Long replied.
“I am asking about your health since you arrived five days ago,” Xie said. “Not your pride at this moment.”
The Five Ancestors Book 7: Dragon by Jeff Stone
During a discussion a comment was made in response to my answer to the question Does feminism exist on the street? Does it exist for women who are homeless or living in poverty? That response was: “Poverty doesn’t kill people.”
The comment has been deleted. At the time it was posted I chose to simply allow it to stand without response.
However, it stuck in my head for several days, rattling around and making connection with another statement I have heard many times over the years: “AIDs doesn’t kill, complications from contracting the AIDs virus kills.”
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AIDs vs Opportunistic Infections
From a scientific or medical perspective HIV (the AIDs virus), in and of itself, does not kill. AIDs attacks the immune system, which makes the patient vulnerable to other diseases (opportunistic infections) and those diseases are what ultimately kill the patient. For additional scientific data see:
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Poverty vs Social Determinants
It is also true that poverty, in and of itself, does not kill. Humans do not need cash to live, they need the things cash can buy. In that respect, poverty is just like the AIDs virus – potentially lethal problems are introduced as a direct result of being poor (Social Determinants or Social Factors) but the cause of death is never identified as ‘poverty.’ For example:
For more information on the Social Determinants that contribute to the death of poor people, see the following (sadly incomplete) list of references and links:
Cascading Effect
‘Poverty does not kill’ is a legitimate statement but a failed argument. Neither poverty nor AIDs are directly and immediately lethal, but there is a clearly identified connection:
Please Respond
I welcome all comments on this topic. In particular, I would like to invite people to post articles illustrating all of the Social Determinants that result in the deaths of people trying to survive poverty.
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“As we reflect on our year of foraging adventures, one thing we marvel at is nature’s capacity to heal, and while we cannot prove it (yet — more research definitely needs to be done), we are certain that the foods nature offers at any given time of the year are exactly the foods we need to achieve optimal health. That is, what grows where we live is what we need to stay healthy.”
–Browsing Nature’s Aisles: A Year of Foraging for Wild Food in the Suburbs by Wendy Brown and Eric Brown
“When abuse persisted despite working harder, participants reported giving up. Working harder resulted in a brief respite but was inevitably followed by more demands and further demoralization…Thus, abuse engendered noncooperation rather than cooperation and consent.”
–Adult Bullying-A Nasty Piece of Work: Translating a Decade of Research on Non-Sexual Harassment, Psychological Terror, Mobbing, and Emotional Abuse on the Job
Note: For more information about combating workplace bullying, visit the Workplace Bullying Institute, Beyond Bullying Association, the International Association on Workplace Bullying & Harassment (IAWBH) and the International Conference on Workplace Bullying.
This begs the question – how does a potential employee spot a predatory manager, or an abusive work environment, during the interview process? Are there techniques for identifying and avoiding the problem all together?
Serial Bullying: How Employee Abuse Starts, Ends, and Restarts with New Targets
“The most common occurrence coinciding with the onset of abuse is getting a new boss or starting a new job: “A surprising number (19%) are bullied almost immediately on starting their new posts. The recent job change and a change in manager account for 82% of the offered events relating to bullying onset.””
–Adult Bullying-A Nasty Piece of Work: Translating a Decade of Research on Non-Sexual Harassment, Psychological Terror, Mobbing, and Emotional Abuse on the Job
Note: For more information about combating workplace bullying, visit the Workplace Bullying Institute, Beyond Bullying Association, the International Association on Workplace Bullying & Harassment (IAWBH) and the International Conference on Workplace Bullying.
“Serial bullying is a repetitive, targeted, destructive form of bullying directed by direct managers toward their employees…also called merry-go-round bullying, [it] is when a bully picks one person at a time to terrorize and moves on to another person, usually after the initial target is driven from the workgroup.”
“Effectively interrupting the cycle requires more than just removing, coaching, or disciplining the abuse. Ending the cycle means encouraging rather than obstructing the expression of employees’ alternative workplace experiences, despite the likelihood that those voices will differ from management’s. Without honestly dealing with aggressors and the climate that spawns and supports aggression, organizations are doomed to repeat the cycle.”
“Only when organizational members at all levels can safely and openly question the dominant culture can the cycle of serial bullying be interrupted. This is no small feat.”
–Adult Bullying-A Nasty Piece of Work: Translating a Decade of Research on Non-Sexual Harassment, Psychological Terror, Mobbing, and Emotional Abuse on the Job
Note: For more information about combating workplace bullying, visit the Workplace Bullying Institute, Beyond Bullying Association, the International Association on Workplace Bullying & Harassment (IAWBH) and the International Conference on Workplace Bullying.
“Bullying causes widespread damage. Victims of bullying, called targets in research on the subject, suffer long-term often permanent psychological, physical, and professional harm. The experience is crippling and devastating.”
“In any given 6 month period, 1 in 4 (25%) US workers experience aggression at work that is persistent and harmful, whether or not these workers identify as targets.”
“In any given 6 month period in the US, workplace bullying harms nearly 40% of US working adults.”
“Witnessing bystanders, even though they do not feel directly bullied, experience more aggression personally targeted at them than do employees working in settings without bullying present. As bullying increases, job satisfaction and overall job rating decrease and job-related stress increases—for targets and for witnessing bystanders.“
–Adult Bullying-A Nasty Piece of Work: Translating a Decade of Research on Non-Sexual Harassment, Psychological Terror, Mobbing, and Emotional Abuse on the Job
Note: For more information about combating workplace bullying, visit the Workplace Bullying Institute, Beyond Bullying Association, the International Association on Workplace Bullying & Harassment (IAWBH) and the International Conference on Workplace Bullying.