Changing Our Public Discourse on Health

The UNNATURAL CAUSES series and accompanying impact campaign aim to enlarge our public discourse about health through the following objectives:

(1) Increase public awareness of our alarming socioeconomic and racial/ethnic inequities in health and their human and financial costs;

(2) Promote understanding of the various ways in which class, racism and disempowerment can get under the skin and influence health outcomes;

(3) Illustrate how well-being is not just a matter of making good choices and having access to quality care; our outcomes are inextricably linked - for better and worse - to the social conditions that surround and shape our lives;

(4) Demonstrate that health inequities affect all of us. On average, the bottom 80% of us have worse health than the rich and powerful. We all bear the financial burden for disease and disability: increased medical costs, lost economic activity, lowered business productivity;

(5) Move health discussions "upstream" - beyond the individual-focused "repair shop" model of disease and illness to a preventive approach that looks to change the underlying conditions that shape whole group outcomes;

(6) Link health discussions to social and economic policies - e.g., housing, racism, education, jobs and wages, community development, social supports and tax policy. Evaluate social and economic policies by their health impact, and press for more health-promoting measures;

(7) Communicate hopeful solutions that draw public and policy maker attention to innovative and community-based initiatives for health equity.