Inequality Kills Us All

How economic and social inequality leads to poorer health and higher mortality, and how living in a society with entrenched hierarchies increases the negative effects of illnesses for everyone.

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Stephen Bezruchka, who began treating individuals as an emergency physician, has changed his focus to treating countries as a population health doctor.

This shift resulted from his recognizing that for living in the United States, his health was compromised in ways that it wouldn’t be if he had been born in Japan, Slovenia, Sweden, or Spain. By moving to the U.S. from his birthplace, Canada, his potential for leading a healthy life was reduced.

Treating countries is a tall order, requiring vastly different strategies than those used for healing sick people.

Two “medicines” are required to treat nations. One is to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor, thus reducing economic inequality. The other uses the gains from that redistribution to create healthy conditions in early life, when a large fraction of adult health is programmed.

This website presents a prescription to make the United States healthy again. It was one of the healthiest nations in the early 1950s, but now more than 50 countries achieve better health for their inhabitants.

The Prescription

© 2023 - Stephen Bezruchka