Embodiment In Health Care

In the first two sections of Module two we explore how politics, poverty and culture can all impact how we see and feel about certain diagnosis and treatments of illnesses. One of the words in this section that caught my attention was the use of the word “embodiment” while I understand this word in day to day context, the way this word was used in this section was new. In an article examining the oral health disparities for Mexican American Farmworkers, embodiment is explained as the movement of incorporating biology into the social and material world . Meaning that society and social norms can be reflected onto an individual which may impact their health such as low income.
Comparable to the embodiment of diseases seen in human as a result

One of the interesting parts of the PowerPoint was how poverty and social inequalities effect the health of lower income populations. Whether it be due to their knowledge of how to stop the spreading of disease or access to basic health care. Relating to Ebola, this disease was able to spread like wild fire in developing countries because of higher poverty rates that may result in “unhygienic behavior, ignorance, uncompliant” behaviors via social inequalities

In my opinion, in order to deal with our nations issue with disease and illness we need to first address the chronic poverty seen across the United States. In this article by Leatherman it is explained that the impacts poverty has on an individual’s health also are catalysts for the disease as stated in the PowerPoint “Ecology of Disease, Ethnomedicine, and The Social Construction of Illness. Which makes sense because poverty ridden families are more likely to eat foods low in nutrients, have a gym membership, proper hygiene and less probability of receiving the proper health care and yearly