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NEWS
Thursday, July 6, 2017
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
University faculty member finds link between access
to employer-provided health care and employee race, sex
Almost every health
condition could be
impacted by access
to health care,
researcher says
By KENNEDY WERNER
Daily Staff Reporter
New University of Michigan
research find that employment
leads to a higher life expectancy
for white men. The study empha-
sizes
that
Black
individuals,
women and those from a lower
educational background do not
reap the benefits of employment
to the same extent as their white,
male counterparts do.
The findings, published in the
Journal of Racial and Ethnic
Health Disparities, state employ-
ment allows the maximum health
advantage for white males. Health
advantage, measured by incidence
of mortality, dropped 39 percent
for Black employees (as compared
to white employees), 30 percent
for women (as compared to men),
and 36 percent for those from a
less educated background.
Shervin Assari, a research
investigator for the University’s
medical school and School of Pub-
lic Health, is a lead author of the
study. He explained almost every
health condition can be affect-
ed by an individual’s access to
resources. If access to resources
are limited, one’s health can suf-
fer and mortality can rise.
Factors such as education level,
economic background, race and
gender are called social determi-
nants of health. They play a major
role in access and, therefore, the
well-being of a person.
The important effect of group
membership and identity on the
condition of life inspired Assari to
do research in this area.
“U.S. society enhances life
for whites, highly-educated and
men,” Assari said. “For example,
for every dollar that men make, the
earning of women is just 80 cents.
So there’s a 20 percent gender gap.
It’s worse for race. The gap is larg-
er for race. Racial gap in income
generation is back to what it was
50 years ago.”
MAX KUANG/DAILY
Ira Glass, host of the radio show This American Life, presents Seven Things I’ve
Learned at the Power Center on Saturday.
Over the course of two to three
years, Assari analyzed data from the
Americans’ Changing Lives study
from the University’s Institute for
Social Research. The ACL is the old-
est, ongoing, national, longitudinal
study to follow adult behavioral,
social and psychological health since
1986.
Assari also used data from the
ACL for previous research findings.
For instance, he found education
to be a risk factor for depression in
Black men. Furthermore, among the
older adult population, Black indi-
viduals appeared to die earlier from
chronic disease than white individu-
als.
Public Health junior Jeff Sond-
heimer was intrigued by the study’s
findings. Sondheimer, who is pur-
suing a degree in medicine, found
the shortened life expectancy for
women and Black individuals to be
disheartening.
“In public health, we are taught
that access to care and quality of care
have a major impact on one’s health,”
Sondheimer said. “All the more so,
social factors such as wealth, status
and education strongly influence
one’s quality and access to care. I
believe this is an interesting study
that gets to the core of public health.”
Junior Will Schwartz, also a Pub-
lic Health student pursuing pre-
med, found the study unsurprising.
Schwartz is hopeful the future will
bring more studies surrounding pub-
lic policy and its effect on health.
“I think a study on possible solu-
tions to these disparities would be
more useful than just identifying
them,” Schwartz said.
attorney general, state legislature
and
U.S.
representatives
are
all either Republican or have a
Republican majority, he explained.
“When one party controls the
process and there are no checks and
balances, this is the result,” Moss
said. “It’s a problem that feeds itself,
because as soon as the state trends
in one direction politically, they’re
going to draw the lines so that they
stay in power.”
Regardless of which party is in
power, gerrymandering seems to
have converse and extreme effects,
making
elections
either
very
competitive or very safe. Though
state Rep. Winnie Brinks (D–Grand
Rapids) said elections in her district
became more competitive when the
district brought in more Republican
votes, subsequently diluting the
Democratic stronghold, Michigan
elections have become more safe
than competitive. The partisan
majority in each district rarely
changes election to election and
instead is predictable. Whether or
not that is due to voter preferences
or gerrymandering is unclear.
“The
overall
impact
of
gerrymandering has been to reduce
the number of truly competitive
districts in the state,” Brinks
said. “This means that there is an
extraordinary amount of pressure
on the candidates running in
those races to raise hundreds of
thousands of dollars and knock on
tens of thousands of doors.”
While
political
trends
and
less
competitive
districts
may
have been problematic for some
representatives, state Rep. Peter
Lucido (R–Macomb) pushed back
against claims that any of these
effects are unfair.
“No one seems to be saying
what exactly needs to be changed
and why,” Lucido said. “They’re
only saying it’s unfair, but what is
actually unfair? The fact that the
Republicans are in charge? The fact
that they’re the majority? The fact
that they won their elections?”
Effects
Between 1992 and 2013, there
has been a Republican majority in
Michigan’s Senate, and Michigan’s
House has been nearly as red. In
nearly every recent election for
Michigan’s House and Senate,
Michigan Democrats received more
votes, but Michigan Republicans
have held onto power. When the
popular vote isn’t reflected in
representatives, many argue that
politicians are choosing voters
instead of vice-versa.
This comes with another
problem. Voters see their votes
as less effective, as the majority
opinion
isn’t
implemented,
possibly breeding voter apathy.
As
explained
by
Brinks,
decreased
voter
turnout
is
one of the worst side effects of
gerrymandering.
GERRYMANDERING
From Page 1
Later, he discussed how the
show’s “chatty” tone helped make
way for the show’s unprecedented
success without any marketing
once it began to broadcast as a
podcast.
“It became very successful,
very very quickly,” Glass said. “It’s
basically, the aesthetics of the
internet — the internet has this
feeling of like, it’s just me talking
to you, one to one, whether you’re
doing it over Twitter, Facebook or
a blog.”
In his ninth lesson titled “The
Power
of
Not
Seeing,”
Glass
shared how radio can act as way of
humanizing and can create empathy
for others regardless of any other
aspect of a person’s identity. He
used the translated audio of a Syrian
refugee
mother
describing
the
psychological trauma her son is facing
in the aftermath of escaping Aleppo
to emphasize this point.
“I think it helps with an American
audience that you don’t see her,”
Glass spoke. “If you saw, you’d see
she’s wearing a hijab, which is like a
headscarf, but just hearing her voice
you don’t get any information that’d
make you think she’s any different
from you. You don’t think that’s
just some Muslim lady, you think
that’s a mom. Radio is a machine for
empathy.”
IRA GLASS
From Page 1
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