It’s interesting to read about the situations in Iceland and Greece, side by side in part II of The Body Economic, because of the significant differences between them. Basically, Iceland recovered nicely from an economic crisis by listening to the people and continuing to provide them with help, while Greece’s economy continued to suffer as they listened to the IMF, and cut budgets and healthcare. After reading about both countries, the importance of both listening to the citizens and helping them during hard times becomes obvious. However, can it really be that simple? Just continue to help your people, give them what they want, and this will help fix the economic situation? And even more so, it will help the overall health of the people too? The situation in Iceland almost sounds too good. Despite the fiscal crisis, surveys showed that people still showed positive moods, and that they actually began drinking and smoking less and eating healthier. Then again, Iceland was doing really well in terms of happiness to begin with. Social protection programs as well as a high level of social inclusion made Iceland the “happiest” country in the world since the late 1990s. There’s no doubt that this whole nature of the country helped enable it to survive the economic hardships. This is actually why, the authors say, “Iceland was a good place to test our hypothesis that the country’s strengths – notably its democratic participation, social support, and inclusive social protection system- could make it more resilient to an economic meltdown, preventing a public health disaster (59)”.
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