After a class with Dr. Valerie Jenness,
I decided to do a little research on how inequality at a young age adversely
affects people as adults. There’s quite a bit of information out there
regarding the topic. It seems to almost be equated to a stressor in an
environment.
As stress agent, inequality can cause health problems. If a
person is born into a stressful situation and lives his/her first few years in
that environment, that person can potentially be damaged for life. Kind of
scary if you think about it. On the flipside, a person born in a harmonious
environment can have little to no stress related issues caused from childhood.
In the latter situation, the child typically has more access to proper
healthcare. The situation where inequality is prevalent can prevent the child
from learning and growing properly.
There was a sizeable flaw with the studies I researched.
Many of them based their numbers on quantitative data in the form of tax
documents. By using this method, only the upper to middle class are measured
while many members of the lower class are not even touched. The other issue is
the people are reporting their health themselves and there is no mention of the
doctors’ records. For all we know, these people could be lying. It does raise
an interesting topic though that I’ll need to discuss with Dr. Valerie Jenness
next class.
