A large group of researchers at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) are taking a multidisciplinary approach to a paradox discovered by health and medical researchers: evidence from around the world that a person's income level, race or cultural background, and social status can play a major role in how often a person gets sick and how quickly they recover, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

The health disparity between "haves and have-nots," as many observers have dubbed the issue, is the focus of efforts by the university's Center for Health and Community (CHC). The center has been operating for about two years, but its research facility will be officially christened by its director, Nancy Adler, to bring more attention to their work and their mission.

"There's more to health than your genes and organs," Adler told the newspaper. "Who you are, where you live and how you live makes a huge difference."

The so-called "guerrilla" effort includes 250 researchers -- a number of them anthropologists, psychologist and social scientists -- who are working to confirm the societal aspect of disease.

For example, well-regarded studies have found that African American infants are nearly three times as likely to die during their first year as Caucasian infants; African Americans and Native Americans in general are more likely to have diabetes than any other population segment; and Vietnamese women have staggeringly high cervical cancer rates when compared to other groups, the Chronicle reports.

While it's true economic status can account for some of these differences -- poor people generally have less access to health care services -- other studies that eliminated income disparities have found major health differences among people from different social backgrounds.

A British study found that civil servants there -- who used the same health care system and often the same doctors -- showed significant differences in disease rates between those people at the bottom rungs of management and those at the top, the newspaper reports.

These differences have led to the research effort, which focuses on psychological factors that can make people well again -- or keep them healthy in the first place -- and community awareness, the center's director stated.

Adler's group also has gained the support of Surgeon General David Satcher, who said the Health and Community facility "will be very important if we hope to eliminate the disparities in health between different racial, ethnic and economic groups."

To show support for this new school of disease treatment, Satcher told the newspaper the administration has a goal of "eliminating disparities in health care between different racial, ethnic and economic groups" within 10 years.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/
chronicle/archive/2000/09/11/BU85143.DTL