The New Human Rights Movement: Reinventing the Economy to End Oppression by Peter Joseph

Author:Peter Joseph
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781942952664
Publisher: BenBella Books, Inc.
Published: 2017-03-20T22:00:00+00:00

FIGURE 4B. Health and social problems are worse in more unequal countries.

Source: Wilkinson & Pickett, The Spirit Level. www.equalitytrust.org.uk

The study applied a calibrated scoring system to factors, considering their mixture. In other words, something like sexual abuse would be considered one type of ACE, while emotional abuse such as humiliation would be another. These then would be added together to assess the probability of certain addiction outcomes. The study found a vast range of increased propensities for drug use, such that the more ACEs in play, the higher the probability. For example, a male child with four or more ACEs was found to be seven times more likely to be an alcoholic than a person with no ACEs.113 In a separate study using the same framework, “economic hardship,” or an inability to meet financial needs, was also included.114 Unsurprisingly, “economic hardship” was deemed “the most common adverse childhood experience reported.” However, that economic correlation is just one of many. While the study includes economic hardship singularly, which is more often than not linked to low socioeconomic status, the study overlooked how the other ACEs considered, such as child abuse, are also highly correlated to poverty and economic inequality.

As far as mental illness overall is concerned, it has been well established that low socioeconomic status is a risk factor. A report published by the American Psychological Association, examining a database of 34,000 patients with repeat psychiatric hospitalizations, found that unemployment, poverty, and housing unaffordability were correlated with a risk of mental illness. The study states, “One of the most consistently replicated findings in the social sciences has been the negative relationship of socioeconomic status (SES) with mental illness: The lower the SES of an individual is, the higher is his or her risk of mental illness.”115 Similarly, an analysis by M. H. Brenner covering 120 years of data from New York State mental institutions found that instabilities in the national economy are the single most important source of fluctuations in mental-hospital admissions or admission rates.116

As far as depression is concerned, a study by researchers at Washington University in St. Louis in 2016 actually found that child poverty can alter “brain connectivity,” weakening important connections between regions, leading to future clinical depression. Deanna M. Barch, PhD, chair of Washington University’s Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences in Arts & Sciences, stated:

In this study, we found that the way those structures connect with the rest of the brain changes in ways we would consider to be less helpful in regulating emotion and stress . . . [I]t behooves us to remember that adverse experiences early in life are influencing the development and function of the brain. And if we hope to intervene, we need to do it early so that we can help shift children onto the best possible developmental trajectories.117

Likewise, in a 2014 survey published by the US government’s Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, clinical psychologist Bruce E. Levine stated that “suicidality, depression, and mental illness are highly correlated with involvement in the criminal justice system, unemployment, and poverty.

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