What’s
happening to our health? While we pour more and more money into drugs, dietary
supplements and new medical technologies, this ground-breaking
documentary series crisscrosses the country to investigate the findings that
are shaking up conventional understandings of what really makes us healthy,
or sick.
This series sheds light on mounting evidence
that demonstrates how work, wealth, neighborhood conditions and lack of access
to power and resources can actually get under the skin and disrupt human biology
as surely as germs and viruses. But it’s not just
the poor who are sick—so
are the middle classes. At each descending rung of the socio-economic ladder,
people tend to be sicker and die sooner. What’s more, at every level, many communities
of color are worse off than their white counterparts.
Compelling personal stories from all parts
of the country demonstrate how social conditions are as vital to our health
as diet, smoking and exercise. As Harvard epidemiologist David Williams points
out, investing in our schools, improving housing, integrating neighborhoods,
better jobs and wages, giving people more control over their work, these are
as much health strategies as smoking diet and exercise.
who
are sick—so are the middle classes. At each descending rung of the socio-economic
ladder, people tend to be sicker and die sooner. What’s more, at every level,
many communities of color are worse off than their white
counterparts.
