Thursday is the fourth day of National Women’s
Health Week, and an opportunity for all women to prioritize their
health well-being by scheduling annual screening and exams.
President Obama’s health reform law requires
that new health insurance plans cover preventive
services such as mammograms, pap smears, and well-woman visits with
no co-pay or deductible. Because of this provision in the Affordable Care Act, more
than 20.4 million women with private health insurance have received preventive
health services at no additional cost.
Education Is Key to Health: Report
Along with poverty, less schooling linked to more chronic
disease, disability and shorter life.
The better educated you are and the more money you make,
the healthier you're likely to be, a U.S. government report released Wednesday
shows.
The report found that more
educated people with higher incomes suffer from fewer chronic diseases and live
longer than the less educated poor.
"Not having education
and being poor is detrimental to your health," said report co-author Amy
Bernstein, a project director in the division of analysis and epidemiology at
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health
Statistics.
That's partly because
people with fewer advantages often have health habits that include worse diet,
less exercise and smoking, she explained.
In addition, they are
likely to be uninsured or have limited access to health care -- disparities
that haven't changed much in the decade covered by the report, Bernstein said.
"It's frustrating to
the public health community that this is not changing. We want to eliminate
health disparities," Bernstein said.
For example, 44 percent of
people below the poverty level have a disability, compared with 24 percent of
those 400 percent above the poverty line, she said.
"These are really
large differences. Being below the poverty line is really bad for your
health," Bernstein said.
Highlights of the report
include:
·
Twenty-four percent of boys
and 22 percent of girls were obese in homes where parents didn't graduate from
high school.
·
Eleven percent of boys and
7 percent of girls were obese in homes where parents had a college degree.
·
As many as 43 percent of
women aged 25 and older without a college degree are obese. Obesity among men
did not change with education.
·
Thirty-one percent of
adults with a high school diploma or less are smokers, compared with 9 percent
of those with a college degree.
·
Overall, smoking declined
21 percent since 2007, to 19 percent of all adults in 2009.
·
Men aged 25 with no high
school diploma lived roughly nine years less than men with a college degree.
For women, it was about eight years less. That's an increase in this disparity
of about two years since 1996.
·
More poor children in 2010
were insured than in 2000, with the uninsured rate dropping by 13 percent.
In addition to income and
educational disparities, the researchers also found:
·
Half of all adults don't
exercise or engage in aerobic activities; this is especially true of older
adults.
·
A slightly higher
proportion of women are having mammograms (67 percent in 2000, 70 percent in
2010).
·
More people are being
screened for colon cancer with the rate increasing from 34 percent in 2000 to
59 percent in 2010.
Dr. David Katz, director of
the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine, said that
"the good news is life expectancy has gone up, some disparities have
narrowed and some key measures of the quality of the nation's health care --
such as infant mortality -- have improved. Utilization of clinical services,
including clinical preventive services, has also improved somewhat over
time."
The bad news includes
persistent neglect of the power of lifestyle as medicine, he said.
"The greatest
opportunity to enhance medical destiny resides in the realm of lifestyle
behaviors -- tobacco avoidance, healthful eating, routine physical
activity," Katz said.
Another sobering element is
the association between less education and poorer health outcomes, Katz added.
"Financial impediments to a quality education may translate into health
care costs down the line. The report invites the nation to reflect on the risks
of a 'penny wise, pound foolish' approach to education and health alike,"
he said.
Compared to many other
countries, the United States spends more on health care and "has less
health to show for it," Katz said.
More information
(SOURCES: Amy B. Bernstein,
D.Sc., project director, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
National Center for Health Statistics, division of analysis and epidemiology;
David L. Katz, M.D., M.P.H., director, Prevention Health Center, Yale
University School of Medicine, New Haven, Conn.; May 16, 2012, CDC report, Health,
United States, 2011)
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