538 - The Political Determinants of Health
Public Health On Call
The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
4.6 • 644 Ratings
🗓️ 2 November 2022
⏱️ 17 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
Social determinants of health—such as access to appropriate housing, health care, and transportation—drive massive health disparities in the US, and many are underpinned by politics and policies. Professor and author Daniel Dawes talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about his new book which looks at the role of politics and health, why the "moral case" alone can't advance change, and how the health of the democratic process is key to a healthier and more equitable future.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. |
| 0:12.0 | I'm Joshua Sharfstein, Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement, |
| 0:16.9 | and a former health commissioner here in Baltimore. |
| 0:19.7 | Our goal is to bring evidence and experience to illuminate critical public health issues. |
| 0:25.4 | If you have questions or ideas for us, please send an email to public health question at jh.h.org |
| 0:30.4 | that's public health question at jhu.edu for future podcast episodes. |
| 0:44.3 | Today, our guest is Professor Daniel Dawes, author of a book entitled The Political Determinance of Health. Professor Dawes is the executive director of the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at the Morehouse School of Medicine. |
| 0:51.3 | We discuss the role of politics and health, both to understand the |
| 0:56.7 | problem of inequity and to take action. Let's listen. Professor Daniel Dawes, thank you so much |
| 1:04.2 | for joining me on Public Health on call. I'd like to ask you what your starting place is for introducing the concept of political determinants of health. |
| 1:16.6 | Well, Josh, thank you so much for having me on. |
| 1:19.6 | When I think about the starting point, for me it starts, you know, at the inequities that many people are experiencing or we've, you know, observed in our |
| 1:30.2 | society. You know, we know that many racial and ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, |
| 1:36.4 | lower socioeconomic status individuals, LGBTQ plus individuals, and many individuals living in rural |
| 1:42.9 | and frontier communities across the nation die disproportionately each year. And of course, the toll that it's taking is unconscionable. But one of the things that I always think about is that here in this country, the nation's health is not an organic outcome. It is not an accident, right? That we see higher |
| 2:03.1 | death rates among black and brown communities and other groups or that, you know, we see |
| 2:08.0 | worse health outcomes, right? Higher rates of diabetes in one group or mental health inequities, |
| 2:15.5 | higher rates of depression or anxiety, etc., in one group versus another. |
| 2:20.8 | And so I think about, you know, why this is happening. |
| 2:24.5 | And that's where it starts for me. |
| 2:26.3 | Why is this happening? |
| 2:28.4 | Yeah, why is this happening? |
... |
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