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Health rights are Human rights
Martin Luther King Jr. was adamant that “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and inhuman”. It may not make the news as an example of grave injustice but, be in no doubt, it is.
When you think about your own health, how aware are you that both you and your health exist in a context? Do you know how characteristics like your gender, sexuality and race affect your health and more importantly, your access to healthcare?
June is PRIDE month in honour of the Stonewall uprising on June 28th 1969. Pride marches are protest marches for equal rights for the LGBTQIA+ community*, and that includes rights to healthcare.
The statistics are shocking. One in seven LGBT people has experienced discrimination because of their gender from a healthcare professional. And 90% of transgender people have experienced issues with accessing healthcare. The numbers are consistently higher for people of colour and other ethnic minorities than their white counterparts.
This is social context, and because of this social context, the healthcare of the people in this community and their lives are directly affected.
*LGBTQIA+ stands for Lesbian, Gay, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual and + stands for all the other ways in which gender and sexuality show up.
Social context affects your health; whoever you are
But it’s not just LGBTQIA+ people who experience issues based on a characteristic like gender; race is also a factor, as is your social class and education, your nationality and where you live now. We only need to think back a few years to the start of Covid when the shocking health inequalities became deadly serious and visible.
Research shows that in the UK, women in general, have worse health outcomes than men, although when it comes to suicide, men are more at risk. The medical research journal The Lancet recently issued an “…urgent global call for LGBT+ affirmative practices” because of the dire health inequalities experienced by LGBT+ people. The Centre for Disease Control and Prevention in the USA states that “… racial and ethnic minority groups, throughout the United States, experience higher rates of illness and death … when compared to their White counterparts.”.
In June 2020, I wrote a blog titled Black Health Matters. It was at the height of the Covid pandemic, and the disproportionate impact of the virus depending on skin colour was shocking.
Awareness – the starting point for change
Earlier this month we had Men’s Health Week here in the UK spotlighting conditions like prostate cancer. Many men struggle with seeking help, and there’s still stigma attached to prostate cancer for many.
On March 8th each year, we have International Women’s Day. This annual awareness day focuses on women, including their rights and needs. This year’s focus was #inspireinclusion—when everyone’s included, everyone benefits. What a great message!
Black History Month is celebrated in the US and Canada in February and in October in the UK. Carter G Woodson, an American Civil Rights activist, was a scholar, and his dedication is cited as the key factor in creating Black History Month. There’s a blog about Why Black Health also matters if you’d like to know more.
In March 1990 people with mobility disabilities crawled up the steps to the Capitol in Washington, U.S.A., known as the Capitol Crawl. Three months later the president signed the disability act into law. This is why July is celebrated as Disability Pride Month
Every awareness day or focus month starts with someone becoming aware of how important something is and then driving the activism needed to do something about it.
Action is possible, and awareness makes it so
Think about Breast Cancer Awareness Month (October), World Mental Health Day (October 10th), Movember (November – prostate cancer, testicular cancer, and mental health). These are all examples of hugely successful social action taken to champion a cause, demand action on issues, and raise funds for research.
These are all examples of social action where millions of people come together to talk about the issue and do something about it. This could be in a shared way, like doing a sponsored walk, or in a personal way, like booking in for a prostate exam.
There’s a new Awareness Day on the block, International Self Care Day on July 24th every year. It’s ‘only’ been around since 2011, so it’s not yet reached the visibility of the others, but it’s happening. Over the last 10-15 years the conversation about self-care is radically changing. There’s now a Self-Care Academic Research Unit at London Imperial College led by Professor Austen El-Osta. There’s the International Self Care Foundation, the Self Care Forum, and others who champion the importance of self-care.
‘In sight’ is ‘in mind’
You may be familiar with the phrase ‘Out of sight is out of mind’. Well, I’ve turned that outside in and said, ‘In sight is in mind’. When we are reminded of something, we’re more able to remember it, simple as that. This is why we get notifications for appointments and why we like encouraging quotes on social media; they remind us of something important.
It’s also about driving change on a systems and policy level, like the decriminalisation of homosexuality or investing funds in breast cancer research. This is precisely because your health isn’t just personal to you; it has this social component.
The connection between personal and social
You exist in a context. Where you were born, when you were born and into what family, or society, shapes who you are, physically, mentally and socially. It determines the colour of your skin, what illnesses you’re more vulnerable to, and whether you’ve got access to healthcare and social services.
If you’d been born a few hundred years ago and needed medical treatment, your doctor would not wash their hands before touching you. Dr. Ignaz Semmelweiz who died in 1865 was described as a ‘martyr to the world’s stupidity’. He died after being committed to a mental asylum with a nervous breakdown because of his colleagues refusal at adopting handwashing and suffering with the knowledge that so many people needn’t have died because of this simple act.
If you’re born on the island of Nauru in the Pacific today, you’re more likely to be obese than someone born anywhere else in the world. Statistics from the Global Obesity Observatory show that more than 80% of the population is either overweight or obese.
If you were born between the mid-90s and about 2010 (Gen Z), you’re less likely to drink alcohol than those of us born last century. Newsweek reported that 64% of this generation have not had a drink in the last six months.
If you’re born in Hong Kong, your life expectancy is 85 years, or if you’re born in Chad, you’re not expected to reach 54 years of age. That’s a whopping 31 years.
There’s more to social health
Other factors affect your social health, like your social skills and stamina, your ability to build and maintain healthy relationships and have authentic interactions with others. Then there are other factors, like class and education, referred to as socio-economic factors, to name a few.
And finally, what’s going on in the world, and how that affects your health matters. During Covid, the blogs about social atrophy became the most-read blogs on this website. If you’re interested, type in the word ‘atrophy’ in the search bar in the top right-hand corner of the website and you’ll see them all. The phrase ‘social atrophy’ means losing your social skills and stamina in social situations through lack of use.
Why does this matter to you?
When you’re more aware of the social factors influencing and affecting your health, you’ve got more choices. You’re able to take action to prevent the risk of disease, like Angelina Jolie did when she had a double mastectomy because of family history.
You’re able to take heart that if you’re, for example, experiencing menopause, you’re transgender, or you’re struggling with an illness like ME/CFS, you’re not alone. Research shows that these groups of people are more likely struggle to get the healthcare they need.
Invitation to you
Before any change is possible, you need to become aware of it. This is why Awareness Days and Months are so important; they help you see what’s relevant to you.
Get curious. What’s your social context in terms of your health?
- If you have access to it, find out more about your family history
- What are the experiences of those who share some of the aspects that affect your health?
- What social obstacles, like discrimination, lack of investment/funding, or lack of services, affect your health?
- What are the beliefs of your family, faith or community about health and your health characteristics in particular?
Understanding how your social context affects your health will help you advocate better for yourself. You can find out more about self-advocacy in this blog titled Do you know how to self-advocate? It also helps you be kinder to yourself. You’re not alone. What you’re experiencing is likely to be shared with others in similar circumstances.
Be inspired by the Rainbow community, and take PRIDE in who you are.
Remember the message from International Women’s Day this year?
When everyone’s included, everyone benefits.
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Go gently, hold steady, stay the course.
All the best, Thor
PLEASE NOTE THAT THOR A RAIN IS NOT A MEDICAL DOCTOR. THE HELPFUL CLINIC IS NOT A MEDICAL CLINIC AND THIS IS NOT MEDICAL ADVICE. FOR MORE INFORMATION CLICK THE LINK FOR THE DISCLAIMER
