The APEC conference may have concluded with pious statements about this and that and PM Howard has said that conferences such as APEC help people of the world improve their lot - but the evidence seems to point to the opposite.
CommonDreams reproduces a piece from The Independent, which reports that the life expectancy between people in rich and poor countries, is a staggering 30 years:
"Life expectancy in the richest countries of the world now exceeds the poorest by more than 30 years, figures show. The gap is widening across the world, with Western countries and the growing economies of Latin America and the Far East advancing more rapidly than Africa and the countries of the former Soviet Union.
Average life expectancy in Britain and similar countries of the OECD was 78.8 in 2000-05, an increase of more than seven years since 1970-75 and almost 30 years over the past century. In sub-Saharan Africa, life expectancy has increased by just four months since 1970, to 46.1 years.
Narrowing this “health gap” will involve going beyond the immediate causes of disease - poverty, poor sanitation and infection - to tackle the “causes of the causes” - the social hierarchies in which people live, the Global Commission on the Social Determinants of Health says in a report.
Professor Sir Michael Marmot, chairman of the commission established by the World Health Organisation in 2005, who first coined the term “status syndrome”, said social status was the key to tackling health inequalities worldwide.
In the 1980s, in a series of ground-breaking studies among Whitehall civil servants, Professor Marmot showed that the risk of death among those on the lower rungs of the career ladder was four times higher than those at the top, and that the difference was linked with the degree of control the individuals had over their lives.
He said yesterday that the same rule applied in poorer countries. If people increased their status and gained more control over their lives they improved their health because they were less vulnerable to the economic and environmental threats.
“When people think about those in poor countries they tend to think about poverty, lack of housing, sanitation and exposure to infectious disease. But there is another issue, the social gradient in health which I called status syndrome. It is not just those at the bottom of the hierarchy who have worse health; it is all the way along the scale. Those second from the bottom have worse health than those above them but better health than those below.”
The interim report of the commission, in the online edition of The Lancet, says the effects of status syndrome extend from the bottom to the top of the hierarchy, with Swedish adults holding a PhD having a lower death rate than those with a master’s degree. The study says: “The gradient is a worldwide occurrence, seen in low-income, middle-income and high-income countries. It means we are all implicated.”
CommonDreams reproduces a piece from The Independent, which reports that the life expectancy between people in rich and poor countries, is a staggering 30 years:
"Life expectancy in the richest countries of the world now exceeds the poorest by more than 30 years, figures show. The gap is widening across the world, with Western countries and the growing economies of Latin America and the Far East advancing more rapidly than Africa and the countries of the former Soviet Union.
Average life expectancy in Britain and similar countries of the OECD was 78.8 in 2000-05, an increase of more than seven years since 1970-75 and almost 30 years over the past century. In sub-Saharan Africa, life expectancy has increased by just four months since 1970, to 46.1 years.
Narrowing this “health gap” will involve going beyond the immediate causes of disease - poverty, poor sanitation and infection - to tackle the “causes of the causes” - the social hierarchies in which people live, the Global Commission on the Social Determinants of Health says in a report.
Professor Sir Michael Marmot, chairman of the commission established by the World Health Organisation in 2005, who first coined the term “status syndrome”, said social status was the key to tackling health inequalities worldwide.
In the 1980s, in a series of ground-breaking studies among Whitehall civil servants, Professor Marmot showed that the risk of death among those on the lower rungs of the career ladder was four times higher than those at the top, and that the difference was linked with the degree of control the individuals had over their lives.
He said yesterday that the same rule applied in poorer countries. If people increased their status and gained more control over their lives they improved their health because they were less vulnerable to the economic and environmental threats.
“When people think about those in poor countries they tend to think about poverty, lack of housing, sanitation and exposure to infectious disease. But there is another issue, the social gradient in health which I called status syndrome. It is not just those at the bottom of the hierarchy who have worse health; it is all the way along the scale. Those second from the bottom have worse health than those above them but better health than those below.”
The interim report of the commission, in the online edition of The Lancet, says the effects of status syndrome extend from the bottom to the top of the hierarchy, with Swedish adults holding a PhD having a lower death rate than those with a master’s degree. The study says: “The gradient is a worldwide occurrence, seen in low-income, middle-income and high-income countries. It means we are all implicated.”
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