A Health Disparity: The Link Between Socioeconomic Status And Type Ii Diabetes
Department of Biology
Abstract
Describing a volunteer experience at La Casa Clinic, the author talks about the connection between type II diabetes and socioeconomic status. The trends of sickness experienced by patients of La Casa were striking, and the author's understanding was profoundly increased as she began to read more scholarly information about health disparities. She spoke to many patients and tried to understand their situations more deeply than by just the disease that they battled and the parameters that marked their livelihoods. Her understanding of the injustice at hand was not simply that certain groups of people are less healthy than others, but that certain groups are so disadvantaged from such an early age that their achievement of good health is intensely difficult, if possible at all. This realization necessitates that structural and practical changes must be made to ensure that all people are granted their basic right of health.