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Social deprivation - whatever that no doubt liberal inspired term means - claims the life of 450 breast cancer victims a year, according to a Cancer Research study.
Quote:
"These avoidable deaths are not due to differences in the response to treatment, or the type of breast cancer," said Dr Gary Abel, statistician at the University of Cambridge and author of the study. "Rather these are deaths that might be avoided if cancer was caught as early in women from deprived backgrounds as those from more affluent backgrounds."
Quote:
"People are much more fearful of serious illnesses in a deprived community, perhaps more so than in more affluent areas where better access to accurate information allows people to know that cancer isn't necessarily a death sentence," said Dr Simon Abrams, a GP in Everton, which has the most deprived population in England, according to Department of Health indicators. "There is a lack of information about symptoms and also a fear factor that is quite substantial," he told The Independent.
Now, we all know that "deprived" is a code word for "black, brown, or non-white", while "affluent" is a code word for "white", no matter the fact that many non-white people are affluent, and many white people are deprived, and this is true in England as well as the USA.
Don't we always hear that non-white people are "warmer" and more socially connected than those "cold" "anti-social" white people who are supposedly the source of all the non-white people's ills?
If that is so, then how can any of these people cited be socially deprived?
Can someone answer that question and/or explain how the conclusions of this study make an iota of sense?
Now, we all know that "deprived" is a code word for "black, brown, or non-white", while "affluent" is a code word for "white"
No, we don't all know that.
People who are poor and uneducated, no matter what color they are, tend to be less likely to be well-informed about health issues, seek preventive care, get screened for diseases or advocate for themselves once they become ill. All these factors can lead to less favorable medical outcomes.
I am white, and I saw this happen with my own mother. She was raised on a ranch in a big family where you suck it up and don't complain when you're sick. So she always put off going to the doctor until she was really ill, which made her condition that much harder to treat. Like many people in the lower socioeconomic classes she had no interest in nutrition or exercise, she smoked and she held some really (sorry, Mom) ignorant beliefs. For example, she had high blood pressure and congestive heart failure, but when a blood test showed a low level of sodium in her blood, she proclaimed that she didn't have to watch her salt intake any more "because the doctor says I'm low on salt."
Another common behavior among people who are disadvantaged, especially older people, is that they tend to idealize doctors as being all-knowing and take everything they say as gospel. A complicating factor is that they may live in small towns or rural areas where they may not have access to the best medical care. For example, my stepfather had urinary difficulties for months and was brushed off every time he visited his small-town doctor and told that it was nothing. Trusting the doctor's reassurances, my stepfather continued to suffer. Eventually his discomfort became a medical emergency when he was unable to urinate at all and had to be rushed to the emergency room for emergency prostate surgery. Because his doctor was an idiot and my stepfather was to naive to realize he was entitled to a second opinion, he was left incontinent for the rest of his life.
People who are poor and uneducated, no matter what color they are, tend to be less likely to be well-informed about health issues, seek preventive care, get screened for diseases or advocate for themselves once they become ill. All these factors can lead to less favorable medical outcomes.
I am white, and I saw this happen with my own mother. She was raised on a ranch in a big family where you suck it up and don't complain when you're sick. So she always put off going to the doctor until she was really ill, which made her condition that much harder to treat. Like many people in the lower socioeconomic classes she had no interest in nutrition or exercise, she smoked and she held some really (sorry, Mom) ignorant beliefs. For example, she had high blood pressure and congestive heart failure, but when a blood test showed a low level of sodium in her blood, she proclaimed that she didn't have to watch her salt intake any more "because the doctor says I'm low on salt."
Harrier does the same thing, and he is rather well educated, although it could be that he spent an inordinate amount of time at the doctor's office for the first 20 years of his life, and is just happy to be free from going there.
Or it could be that when he scheduled a doctors appointment when he was in his early 20's, after not having to go anymore, the doctor asked Harrier why he was there.
In any event, Harrier is healthy, physically active, weighs below average for his height, has normal blood pressure, does not smoke, and is still reasonably young(though he has thought for some time that he will die before the age of 40).
When Harrier needs to see a doctor, he will do so, and hopefully won't be rebuffed like he was 15 years ago.
Then why wasn't the term "economic deprivation" used instead of "social deprivation"?
Because it's Britain and words and phrases often mean something different than they do in the United States. In the US, social deprivation is often synonymous with social exclusion.
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