Kieger Healthcare Chart of the Month

For today’s video, I had planned to talk about the good state of the healthcare sector after the J.P. Morgan healthcare conference, but as I was walking around San Francisco, I again became aware of the enormous health disparities.

Hi, its Raphael from Kieger.

The following chart shows the prevalence of selected chronic diseases by household income buckets in the US.

Households earning less than 35 thousand USD – in green –  have a 2.4x higher stroke prevalence and a 2.6x higher chronic bronchitis prevalence compared to households earning above 100 thousand USD – in blue. Diabetes is also nearly twice as spread among low-income families.

This relationship is also observable for a lot of other chronic diseases. There are many reasons for this staggering statistics, for example:

• Individuals with lower income may have less access to healthcare, and may be less likely to receive preventative care or early treatment for these conditions.

• Additionally, these individuals may be more likely to live in areas with poor air quality and may have limited access to healthy food options.

• Another important factor is the lack of social support and stress that comes with living in poverty. This can have a negative impact on physical and mental health.

The good news is that there is a clear trend that health insurers and providers have started to consider such social determinants of health. But, much remains to be done to address these health disparities.