Skip to main content

Ezra Klein - An Interview With Atul Gawande

Popularity Report

Total Popularity Score: 0
Loading...
Loading...
Loading...
Loading...
Loading...
Loading...

Rank

Bookmark History

Saved by 3 people (0 private), first by anonymouse user on 2009-06-23


Public Sticky notes

That brings up another point. Putting aside the difference between El Paso and McAllen, both are going to have higher costs because their people are poorer. This gets to the whole question of social determinants of health: the fact that you're sicker if you have less income, or education. Do we give that enough attention?

I think the really interesting thing is that even beyond the baseline amount of poorer health associated with lower incomes, there's this whole body of powerful literature showing that levels of inequality are even more highly correlated with poor health.

Highlighted by taryn930

there's something protective about rural areas, where there's less inequality, so if you take rural areas and urban areas with similar levels of poverty, the rural areas will be healthier. And people say these areas are more socially cohesive and that's what does it. But how does that make cancer rates lower?

Highlighted by taryn930

My hypothesis is that communities have local anchor institutions that foster values and norms that make the medical system successful. My sense is that in McAllen it was about a few institutions striking out in different ways that set the norm for what others did.

Highlighted by taryn930