You might believe that no factors impact your health as much as your personal behaviors, genes, and the quality of your medical care. However, research has found that the social conditions in which we live and work affect health and longevity far more. That’s why having thriving communities is so important.

A groundbreaking PBS documentary looks at how issues of wealth, power, and privilege contribute to ongoing health problems. In fact, the United States spends $2 trillion a year on health care, yet ranks 30th in life expectancy among industrialized nations.

“There are ways in which our society is organized that are bad for our health,” says Nicolas Christakis, MD. “And there’s no doubt that we could reconfigure ourselves in ways that would benefit our health.” Meanwhile, epidemiologist Ichiro Kawachi, MD, points out that factors such as health care can only affect so much. “Health care can deal with the diseases and illnesses — but the lack of health care is not the cause of illness and disease,” he says. “It is like saying since aspirin cures a fever, the lack of aspirin must be the cause of the fever.”

View a preview of this documentary to learn how our social environments can trump even medical care, behaviors, and genes when it comes to our health.

filed in: Thriving Communities
subjects: health-care-crisis, health-care-system, health-policy, racial-ethnic-disparities