Thursday, August 30, 2007

You know you're a Social Determinants of Health Nerd when...

I'm very excited about the upcoming PBD documentary, "Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick?" This is an apt time to foster discourse about the social determinant of health and root causes of illness, with people discussing the ineptitude of our health care system (with help from Michael Moore) to start thinking about what really impacts health. A I hope this gets the average person engaged & thinking, not just us nerds.

http://www.unnaturalcauses.org/

This is great b/c it seeks to be more than an informative documentary, but platform for social action through a public health campaign. From the website:
Unnatural Causes, a seven-part series for PBS broadcast and DVD release, will, for the first time on television, sound the alarm about our glaring socio-economic and racial disparities in health--and seek out root causes. But those causes are not what we might expect. While we pour more and more money into drugs, dietary supplements and new medical technologies, it turns out there is much more to our health than bad habits, health care or unlucky genes. The social conditions in which we are born, live and work profoundly affect our well-being and longevity.
Conceived as part of an ambitious public education campaign conducted in partnership with leading public health, policy, and community-based organizations, Unnatural Causes will help foster a new and hopeful approach to the public's health. As Harvard epidemiologist David Williams points out, investing in our schools, improving housing, integrating neighborhoods, better jobs and wages, giving people more control over their work, these are as much health strategies as smoking diet and exercise. And these are the stories Unnatural Causes will tell.


Word.

3 comments:

MarcLord said...

I am really excited, too, to see this. I am actually on their mailing list to arrange a local screening, but sadly, they do not seem to be well-organized and have not been contacting us local "activists" to try and encourage promotion for the series.

MarcLord said...

Whoops. It's Caitlin. I was logged in as Marc!

DeAnn said...

And I was so excited that Marc was as into this as us ... just kidding. =)

Let us know about any local stuff, Caitlin.

By the way, I really will post more "casual" topics as well, I had just received an email about the series & was happy to have a venue to share (*cough* I hope we all USE this). But will also post about life, liberty, & the pursuit of happiness in general. Yeehaw.