Risk Factors for America
This week a striking statistic crossed my path - families without paid leave have higher rates of infant mortality.
I have to let that sit for a moment so you can soak it in.
I’ve been meditating on this for 6 days not yet ready to find the words, even now I stop short to choke on the anger. This means that families who can’t afford to take time off to care for each other end up not being able to care for each other. And guess what? We fare better in life when we can take care of each other!!!!
Ahem.
In terms of priorities, this is one of those stark moments when the veil is lifted and the butt-naked embarrassing truth is revealed, and is not pretty. Our priorities are upside-down and backward. Even when we try to address the problem of infant mortality head on, like through SIDS campaigns, and prenatal care, and research into how and why babies die, one of the most comprehensive, efficient, fair, and effective options alludes us: make sure that we each have what we need to take care of each other. It’s too elegant and simple to be true. Maybe we don’t need more high level hospitals, or high tech drugs, or new technologies to prolong life, as much as we just need each other.
And I don’t mean to be simplistic. I don’t. I don’t mean to be one of those commentators who takes data all out of context and out of proportion. This information just emphasizes that social and economic forces impact our health and sustainability. This, when compared to other information, can make my thinking bulge in ways that distorts context and proportion, so, excuse me.
For example, this week, a U.S. district court judge decided that a woman who was being held in custody for having fake immigration documents should not be released (despite federal sentencing guidelines and the recommendations of the prosecutor). Instead, she should have double the recommended sentence. Why? Because she was HIV positive. And pregnant.
Let’s just imagine for a second that being in jail during pregnancy is a good thing, let’s just imagine that it’s a certain sort of ‘paid time off’ that will allow this woman to provide for herself and her baby in ways that she wouldn’t otherwise be able to do. It’s almost like state resources are being made available to the less fortunate! Almost. Of course we have to assume things about this woman’s life, like her inability to take care of herself and her family. And we have to accept that her liberty is not integral to her well being.
If social and economic forces impact our health and sustainability, how will being jailed, and disempowered BY THE STATE, impact our health and sustainability?
Hmmm…
Another item that came to my attention this week is that racial disparities in health care continue to exist.
Women of color fare worse than white women in various ways, to varying degrees, in every state. In some states, the disparities are much smaller: which can mean that all women fare well, or all women fare equally poorly. Either way, this too emphasizes the fact that social and economic forces impact our health and sustainability. Since race is almost entirely a social construct more than a biological reality, this report points out that the root of those disparities is something cultural, something man-made.
Families without paid leave have higher infant mortality rates.
Families that are not white have higher infant mortality rates.
Families that are in generally impoverished areas, regardless of race, have higher infant mortality rates.
What if, to help stave off the detrimental health outcomes by infusing state resources, we imprison families without paid leave, and families that are insufficiently white, and families that are excessively poor?
Oh. Yeah. We are…