05 April 2010

Social ontology and public health policy


One of the social determinants of health is power, and a discussion of power can mean many things.

In one case, it could mean a discussion of personal and social responsibility: what should the society do, what should the individual do?

What are the powers activated and inactivated of society and its (instrumental) structures and individuals within (and reproducing) such structures?

17 comments:

micro said...

Bouyaka! I'm moving to Oakville!

renamaphone said...

you can't afford it.

micro said...

oh. =(

jc said...

poverty=artists

jc said...

so is this the percentage of people living in poverty in those areas.

With a little reading I found out that:
In the US absolute poverty is defined as people living on less than $1.50 a day!

Before the Industrial reveolution poverty was the norm.

hmm. south africa is about 30%...does this mean Montreal is more impoverished than South Africa!? I dunno.

Denis said...

I would like to see an updated version of this chart. I would think that things may have changes since 1995, espescially places like Winnipeg and Regina. Also, Hull and Gatineau are now one and the same.

c-dog said...

From what I understand, things have gotten worse.

renamaphone said...

It's fine to compare cities within the same region, but it's another thing to use the same variables to assess a city in let's Africa and one in Canada.

I feel like I'm stating the obvious here, but the relationship between cash currency and wellbeing is not a constant.

Sorry, I just get annoyed by statements like "so and so live on less than a dollar a day"...not that anyone was saying that...but i just can't help but wonder how people evaluate poverty, and if they're using appropriate indicators.

Lorne Roberts said...

yeah, i'm curious about the indicators too. maybe things were different in 1995, but i'm not so sure that montreal has a poverty rate of 41.2, while winnipeg's is 24.3. if there is 40% more poverty in Montreal than in Wpg, you sure wouldn't know it walking down the street.

what defines poverty? below a certain income level?

c-dog said...

The poverty rate is the number of people living underneath the poverty line within their region/municipality, I think.

And like any indicator, it is flawed. I know lots of people that live very well on 30K, and others who struggle on the same.

Nonetheless, at a population level, it's the best we've got, and by this I don't mean this indicator in particular, but indicators in general.

jc said...

The poverty that they're talking about here though, at least my understanding of what poverty is, is people living on less than a $1000 a year. 30k? That's luxury.

I think they're talking about people who have little to no income. That's poverty.

And so, in Canada,most major cities have an average of 25% of the poeple who have no income. I can see that.

And Ren, to your point...in certain parts of the world I imagine what is seen as poverty is not really. Not having certain technologies, or living to different standards(like in the jungle or at the brokenhead) isn't necessarily worse. That's where studies like this bug me, when a major determining factor to poverty is money, when in some cases you can be very, very happy without it. Like you can have healthy living without healthcare perhaps. This is a capitalist study!

Lorne Roberts said...

25% of people in any Canadian city have no income? I don't think so. 5%, maybe, or 2%.

But as C-dog pointed out, poverty is defined by a specific number, not just a random "people without much money" kind of thing. I think that generally, for a single person in Canada, it's somewhere around $17,000. That's part of why, as an indicator, it doesn't work well. Someone with no debt who lives a non-extravagant lifestyle can live quite well on $17,000, wheres someone with $500 a month in student loan payments cannot.

jc said...

hmmm, look up poverty on wikipedia and see what you get. low income is one thing, poverty is another....or maybe I'm misunderstanding this...but I doubt it.

Look it up...it's very, very interesting. shit, maybe I'll post it

J C said...

okay, see above...now I better go get a sandwich.

D.Macri said...

On a side note is wikipedia considered a reliable source? Isn't it made by whoever wants to add, just all willy nilly? I've seen some crazy wikki pages, and some that seem much more credible. Is there a way to tell them apart?

Recently I heard an alternate version of the Ken Lieshman story, where instead of going missing in a plane crash and eaten by hungry wolves, he grows old attending church in Wpg. (buddy told me he went to same church).

Should Andrew rewrite his folk song?

Haha.

jc said...

history and how it's remembered, what's written down, what's real, wikipedia included...hmm, interesting

haha, and the same would be said about the written history of the Metis according artist Mario Doucette.

or journalism...where's the real truth there?

CaptainGoldStar said...

spiritual wealth is all that matters.

-the poor man s wealth is in a holy place-