SASKATOON, SK/ Troy Media/ – Certain Canadian commentators are advancing a strange critique of public health, suggesting that physicians and public health experts, charged with caring for the health of Canadians, should not concern themselves with the root causes of illness and stick to a narrow range of health interventions.
Fortunately, Canadian health experts have a broader and more complete understanding of how and why people get sick. They aren’t satisfied with simply pulling drowning kids out of the river; though this is obviously important; they also look upstream to ask why kids are falling in the river in the first place.
Decades of studies have shown conclusively that income and its distribution, education, employment, housing, food security and the wider environment have far greater impact on health outcomes than healthcare.
These upstream factors touch on all aspects of public policy. Our health is determined by political choices. If we want the best for Canadians, shouldn’t our political choices be determined by health?
There is a growing international movement, supported by the World Health Organization, toward “Health in all Policies,” an approach that has been adopted by governments around the world.
The notion facing the greatest scrutiny is one that has been expressed most clearly in the British Medical Journal: “The more equally wealth is distributed, the better the health of that society.” There are three key ways in which wealth inequality can lead to worse health outcomes:
1) most obvious, poverty. In a less equal society, more people live in relative disadvantage, and are less able to afford safe housing and nutritious food or to access educational and economic opportunities. Their health suffers as a result, with people living in poverty often having life expectancies 20 or more years shorter than wealthier citizens. That can manifest in rates of diabetes, heart disease, STIs, infant and overall mortality many times greater than the rest of the city.
2) all people in less equal countries – except for the very wealthiest members of a society – suffer from worse physical and mental health even if they are at or near the top of the socioeconomic scale, whether from higher levels of crime, greater strain on the social safety net, or even higher levels of stress.
3) new evidence also suggests that it’s not only the people in unequal countries who are sicker; it’s their markets as well. The OECD reported in 2014 that income inequality is at its highest level in 30 years, with economic growth slowed by as much as 10 per cent in some countries as a result. An IMF study from the same year showed that redistributive policies can improve economic performance in the long term. Many experts, including economists at TD bank, are consequently calling for action on income inequality. Greater levels of inequality damage the economy, worsening the material conditions of all who participate in the economy, and with them their health and wellbeing. Given that inequality has grown significantly in Canada, with the richest 20 per cent now holding 67.4 per cent of wealth in this country, this is an issue of great concern.
– Ryan Meili is an expert advisor with EvidenceNetwork.ca, a family physician in Saskatoon and founder of Upstream: Institute for A Healthy Society. @ryanmeili
