What is it that determines the potential, optimum health of varying stratospheres of our society? That question is what Marmot, Bell, and Goldblatt explore in the Social Inequality article. However, we as a society couldn’t even come to identify inequalities regarding health until we globalized a structure that would help us understand health conditions on a much larger scale. As discussed in article 2, it wasn’t until the outbreak of cholera and typhus in the 1840’s that medical minds realized we needed a larger scale response to outbreaks of this size and other diseases that may affect our society, and therefore our economies, work forces, etc. I found the notion that we really did organize our medical and healthcare systems according to beliefs at the time very disturbing. While this notion is obvious, it underscores the ignorance we succumbed to in different decades and the effect that has had on our methods of healing. If we rely on strategies that are centuries old, we cannot possibly deal with the rapidly evolving health issues of today. In lieu of this, we must be at the forefront of our global health initiatives and move towards a more equal and accessible forum through which all can receive the care they deserve as citizens and members of the human race.
Annaliisa Gifford
